"Well, if I were you I wouldn't put up with it for a moment."
Joseph tried to exchange a smile with Stephen. "Ah, but I'm not a clever business man like you, Edgar! I'm only a muddleheaded old artist - if I may be so bold as to lay claim to that title - and Stephen knows well that I'm grateful to him for all that he's doing."
Paula, who had been crumbling a roll in glowering abstraction, intercepted the offensive reply which everyone felt to be hovering on Stephen's tongue by saying suddenly: "How long will it be before we get probate?"
Everyone was rather startled by this, and as no one else seemed inclined to answer her Joseph said: "My dear, I'm afraid we aren't thinking of such things just yet."
She cast him one of her scornful, impatient glances. "Well, I am. If Uncle Nat's left me the money he always said he would I shall put Wormwood on."
Roydon flushed, and muttered something unintelligible. Valerie said that she would make a point of going to see it. She gave it as her opinion that it would be marvellous. Mathilda hoped, privately, that this appreciation would in some measure compensate Roydon for the marked lack of enthusiasm displayed by everyone else. She rose from the table, and went away to smoke a cigarette in the library.
Here she was soon joined, rather to her annoyance, by Mottisfont, who, after remarking aimlessly that one missed one's morning paper, began to wander about the room, fidgeting with blind-cords, matchboxes, cushions, and anything else that came in the way of his unquiet hands.
After a few minutes, Mathilda laid down her book. "You seem worried, Mr. Mottisfont."
"Well, who wouldn't be?" he demanded, coming to the fire. "I don't know how you can go on as though nothing had happened! Apart from anything else, Stephen's manner -"
"Oh, Stephen!" she said. "You ought to know him by now, surely!"