Disclaimer: not an iota is mine, and not an iota is gained.
"To offer aid and then remove it is most unfair. It's ungentlemanly."
"Oh, and you are a gentleman?"
"Not I, perhaps, but I've made no pretentions towards it! You, however, my dear Watson, you pride yourself a gentleman. And I must say your actions in this matter do not suit."
"You've tried to sabotage my marriage. You have no right to speak of, of actions as being fitting or, or - of anything! You have no right, Holmes!"
"I most certainly do. Have I no claim on you? Do you utterly renounce me, now? Oh, frailty thy name is Watson!"
Watson threw his hands briefly into the air, cane swinging a short arc. "Holmes!" he exclaimed desperately, with a pleading, pitying intonation. He settled himself a bit, then began in a teacherly fashion, "You are my friend."
"Your most intimate friend," Holmes interrupted quietly, a stubborn murmur.
"My most intimate friend," Watson accepted, with a nod declaring the correction made and, also, irrelevant. He pushed on, unhalted. "However, surely you must see that the claim of a wife - " here he saw Holmes slightly raise his head, an eyebrow in the air, a proclamation about to be made, so he rephrased himself to avoid another enticement to precision, "- a fiancee," Holmes subsided, with a mulish moue upon his lips, eyes cast down and to the side. Watson continued, voice getting higher as his desperation gradually pulled away from his fraying control, "Has far more claim upon me than even an intimate friend. You must."
Holmes' eyes narrowed a bit further, his gaze not moving, lips still obstinately formed.
"You must," Watson stated again, softly. Declaring a sentence.