‘Bless your heart, I don’t care what sort of a rôle you appear in!’ replied Stephen. ‘All I beg is that you won’t stand there ranting like Lady Macbeth. Too much drama in the home turns my stomach, I find.’

‘If you had a shred of decency, you’d be on my side!’

‘In that case, I haven’t a shred of decency. I don’t like the play, I don’t like the dramatist, and I object to being read to.’

‘Children, children!’ said Joseph. ‘Come now, this won’t do, you know! On Christmas Eve, too!’

‘Now I am going to be sick,’ said Stephen, dragging himself up, and lounging over to the door. ‘Let me know the outcome of this Homeric battle, won’t you? I’m betting six to four on Uncle Nat myself.’

‘Well, really, Stephen!’ exclaimed Valerie, with a giggle. ‘I do think you’re the limit!’

This infelicitous intervention seemed to remind Nathaniel of her existence. He glared at her, loathing her empty prettiness, her crimson fingernails, her irritating laugh; and gave vent to his feelings by barking at Stephen. ‘You’re as bad as your sister! There isn’t a penny to choose between you! You’ve got bad taste, do you hear me? This is the last time either of you will come to Lexham! Put that in your pipe, and smoke it!’

‘Tut-tut!’ said Stephen, and walked out of the room, greatly disconcerting Sturry, who was standing outside with a tray of cocktails, listening with deep appreciation to the quarrel raging within.

‘I beg your pardon, sir; I was about to enter,’ said Sturry, fixing Stephen with a quelling eye.

‘What a lot you’ll have to regale them with in the servants’ hall, won’t you?’ said Stephen amiably.

‘I was never one to gossip, sir, such being beneath me,’ replied Sturry, in a very grand and despising way.

He stalked into the room, bearing his burden. Paula, who was addressing an impassioned monologue to her elder uncle, broke off short, and rushed out; Joseph urged Valerie, and Maud, and Mottisfont to go up and change for dinner; and Nathaniel told Sturry to bring him a glass of the pale sherry.

While this family strife had been in full swing, Mathilda, in the library, had been explaining to Willoughby, as tactfully as she could, that Nathaniel was not at all likely to finance his play. He was strung up after his reading, and at first he seemed hardly to understand her. Plainly, Paula had led him to suppose that her uncle’s help was a foregone conclusion. He went perfectly white when the sense of what Mathilda was saying penetrated his brain, and said in a trembling voice: ‘Then it’s all no use!’

‘I’m afraid it’s no use as far as Nat is concerned,’ Mathilda said. ‘It isn’t his kind of play. But he isn’t the only potential backer in the world, you know.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know any rich people. Why won’t he back it? Why shouldn’t p-people like me be g-given a chance? It isn’t fair! People with money – people who don’t care for anything but –’