Mrs. Langham gave vent to a little sort of wail.
“You aren’t going back on Katya?” she said. “It isn’t true, is it, that there’s another?”
“I don’t know whether it’s true or not true,” Grimshaw said, “but you can take it that to-day’s ceremony has hit me a little hard. Katya is always first, but think of that dear little woman tied to the sort of obtuse hypochondriac that Dudley Leicester is!”
“Oh, but there’s nothing in Pauline Lucas,” Mrs. Langham objected, “and I shouldn’t say Dudley was a hypochondriac. He looks the picture of health.”
“Ah, you don’t know Dudley Leicester as I do,” Grimshaw said. “I’ve been his best friend for years.”
“I know you’ve been very good to him,” Ellida Langham answered.
“I know I have,” Grimshaw replied, as nearly as possible grimly. “And haven’t I now given him what was dearest and best to me?”
“But Katya?” Mrs. Langham said.
“One wants Katya,” Grimshaw said—“one wants Katya. She is vigour, she is life, she is action, she is companionship. One wants her, if you like, because she is chivalry itself, and so she’s obstinate; but, if one can’t have Katya, one wants....”
He paused and looked at the dachshund that, when he paused, paused and looked back at him.