‘No, no, that isn’t quite fair!’ protested Joseph. ‘Why, I’ve known poor old Nat to be set fast with it! I’m a stupid fellow: I daresay I did jar him. I wonder if I had better go after him?’

‘No, Joe,’ said Mathilda kindly. ‘You mean well, but you’ll only annoy him. Why is our little Paula looking like the Tragic Muse?’

‘This awful house!’ ejaculated Paula. ‘How any of you can spend an hour in it and not feel the atmosphere – !’

‘Pray silence for Mrs Siddons!’ said Stephen, regarding her with a sardonic eye.

‘Oh, you can scoff!’ she flung at him. ‘But even you must feel the tension!’

‘Well, do you know, it’s an awfully funny thing, because I’m not a bit psychic, or anything like that, but I do see what Paula means,’ said Valerie. ‘It’s a kind of an atmosphere.’ She turned to Roydon. ‘You could write a marvellous play about it, couldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know that it would be quite in my line,’ he replied.

‘Oh, I have an absolute conviction that you’re the sort of person who could write a marvellous play about simply anything!’ said Valerie, raising admiring eyes to his face.

‘Even guinea-pigs?’ asked Stephen, introducing a discordant note.

The playwright flushed. ‘Very funny!’

Mathilda perceived that Mr Roydon was unused to being laughed at. ‘Let me advise you to pay little if any heed to my cousin Stephen!’ she said.

Stephen never minded what Mathilda said to him; he only grinned; but Joseph, at no time remarkable for tact, brought the saturnine look back to his face by saying: ‘Oh, we all know what an old bear Stephen likes to pretend to be!’

‘God!’ said Stephen, very distinctly.

Paula sprang up, thrusting the hair back from her brow with one of her hasty gestures. ‘That’s what I mean! You’re all of you behaving like this because the house has got you! It’s the tension: something stretching and stretching until it snaps! Stephen’s always worse when he’s here; I’m on edge; Valerie flirts with Willoughby to make Stephen jealous; Uncle Joe’s nervous, saying the wrong thing: not wanting to, but impelled to!’

‘Well, really!’ exclaimed Valerie. ‘I must say!’

‘Let no one think I’m not enjoying myself!’ begged Mathilda. ‘Yule-tide, children, and all that! These old-fashioned Christmases!’

Roydon said thoughtfully: ‘I know what you mean, of course. Personally, I believe profoundly in the influence of environment.’

‘“After which short speech,”’ quoted Stephen, ‘“they all cheered.”’

Joseph clapped his hands. ‘Now, now, now, that’s quite enough! Who says radio?’

‘Yes, let’s!’ begged Valerie. ‘The dance music will be on. Mr Roydon, I just know you’re a dancer!’

Willoughby disclaimed, but was borne off, not entirely unwillingly. He was a little dazzled by Valerie’s beauty, and although a sane voice within him told him that her flattery was inane, he did not find it unpleasant. Paula was a more stimulating companion, but although she admired him, and had an intelligent appreciation of his work, she was apt to be exhausting, and (he sometimes thought) distinctly over-critical. So he went off with Valerie and Joseph, reflecting that even geniuses must have their moments of relaxation.