‘I think you’d be far better advised to send your play to some producer in the usual way,’ said Mathilda, in a bracing voice calculated to check hysteria.

‘They’re all afraid of it!’ he said. ‘They say it hasn’t got box-office appeal. But I know – I know it’s a good play! I’ve – I’ve sweated blood over it! I can’t give it up like this! It means so much to me! You don’t know what it means to me, Miss Clare!’

She began gently to suggest that he had it in him to write other plays, plays with the desired box-office appeal, but he interrupted her, saying violently that he would rather starve than write the sort of play she meant. Mathilda began to feel a little impatient, and was quite glad to see Paula stride into the room.

‘Paula!’ said Roydon despairingly, ‘is it true, what Miss Clare says? Is he going to refuse to put up the money?’

Paula was flushed and bright-eyed, stimulated by her quarrel with Nathaniel. She said: ‘I’ve just told him what I think of him! I told him –’

‘Well, we don’t want you to tell us,’ said Mathilda, losing patience. ‘You ought to have known that there wasn’t a hope!’

Paula’s gaze flickered to her face. ‘I shall get the money. I always get what I want, always! And I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life!’

‘Judging by those of Nat’s remarks which I was privileged to hear –’

‘Oh, that’s nothing!’ Paula said, tossing back her hair. ‘He doesn’t mind having rows. We none of us do. We like rows! I shall talk to him again soon. You’ll see!’

‘I hope to God I shan’t!’ said Mathilda.

‘Ah, you’re so un-understanding!’ Paula said. ‘I know him much better than you do. Of course I shall get the money! I know I shall!’

‘Don’t buoy yourself up with false hopes: you won’t!’ said Mathilda.

‘I’ve got to get it!’ Paula said, looking rapt, and tense. ‘I’ve got to!’

Roydon glanced uncertainly from her glowing face to Mathilda’s discouraging one. He said in a dejected voice: ‘I suppose I’d better go and change. It doesn’t seem much use –’

Paula said: ‘I’m coming too. It is of use, Willoughby! I always get my own way! Really!’

A merry Christmas! Mathilda thought, watching them go. She took a cigarette from the box on the table, and lit it, and sat down by the fire, feeling quite limp. All this emotional strain! she thought, with a wry smile. It was not her affair, of course, but the threadbare playwright, tiresome though he was, had roused her pity, and Paula had a disastrous way of dragging even mere onlookers into her quarrels. Besides, one couldn’t sit back and watch this ill-starred party going to perdition. One had at least to try to save it from utter ruin.

She was forced to admit that she could not immediately perceive any way of saving it from ruin. If Paula’s folly did not precipitate a crisis, Joseph’s balm-spreading would. There could be no stopping either of them. Paula cared only for what concerned herself; Joseph could never be convinced that his oil was not oil but vitriol. He saw himself as a peacemaker; he was probably peacemaking now, Mathilda reflected: infuriating Nat with platitudes, making bad worse, all with the best intentions.