“Guns?” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely. “Were we talking of guns?”
“I merely said, sir, that one must stick to one’s guns.”
“Of course, yes! Decidedly one must stick to one’s guns. Very proper. Well, Valentine, I too stuck to my guns. Like you, I thought they were good guns. My young wife and I grew to disagree quite violently about her preference for being out-and-about to rearing my children: until one day, after a more than usually fierce and childish argument, she left my house—this house, Valentine—and never came back.”
From the shadowy distance Mr. Lapwing was looking thoughtfully at Valentine. But Valentine’s eyes were engaged elsewhere: he was seeing a picture of Valerest stamping out of his house, never to come back. It was, Valentine saw, quite conceivable. He could see it happening. It was just the sort of thing Valerest might do, stamp out of the house and never come back. And the picture grew clearer before Valentine’s eyes, and he stared the picture out.
“Well,” he said at last, “that’s the sort of thing that happens. It’s got to happen.”
Mr. Lapwing said: “Exactly.” His face was in the shadow. Valentine, fiddling with a cigarette, still staring at the picture in his mind, went on:
“I mean, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? A man can’t go on forever living in the same house with a woman who laughs at the—the—well, you know what I mean—at the most sacred things in him. And she’s got a dog.”
“I know,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Mr. Tuppy. Nice little dog.”
“Bloody little dog!” snapped Valentine. “Look here, sir, when things have got to the state they have with Valerest and me the crash has got to come. Just got to, that’s all.”