"Oh, as long as you don't mind, I suppose it has nothing to do with me!" said Mottisfont.
"Stephen and I understand one another," said Joseph, becoming the indulgent uncle again. "Now, I think we had better all go to bed, don't you? We are a little overwrought, and, indeed, how could we fail to be? Perhaps the night will bring counsel." He went to the door, but looked back as he opened it to say with a wistful smile: "We feel the blank in our lives already, don't we? Perhaps I more than anyone. To go to bed without that good night to Nat! It will be long before I can accustom myself to it."
Mottisfont and Roydon both suffered the Englishman's inevitable reaction to such indecent pathos. Mottisfont reddened, and coughed; Roydon stared at his feet, and muttered: "Quite!" Joseph sighed, and said: "But I mustn't intrude my private grief upon you. We've all got to keep stiff upper lips, haven't we?"
Neither of his listeners could lower himself sufficiently to respond adequately to this, so Joseph went away with a heavy tread and another sigh.
"Well, considering I never heard Mr. Herriard say a decent word to him - !"began Roydon.
Mottisfont resented Joseph's attempt to play upon his emotions quite as profoundly as Roydon, but he had known the Herriards for many years, and he was not going to join a long-haired playwright in running them down. He said repressively: "The Herriards take a good deal of knowing. They've all got sharp tongues, except Joe, but I've never set any store by that. You can't judge by appearances."
"It seems to me that they all play into one another's hands!" said Roydon. "In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that Stephen's filthy rudeness to Joseph Herriard is just so much eyewash! You can't help noticing how they all hang together, once it comes to the pinch!"
Mottisfont had been thinking much the same thing, but he was not going to admit it. He merely said that there was nothing surprising in families hanging together, and made for the door.
Roydon followed him upstairs, remarking in a disgruntled way that it wasn't his idea of a Christmas party.
He was by no means alone in this view of the matter. The Chief Constable, receiving Inspector Colwall's report on the case, said that this was the sort of thing that would happen when Bradford was sick.