Poor Joseph was stricken to incoherence by the injustice of this accusation, and could only gaze after the matron in shocked bewilderment. He was recalled to a sense of his surroundings by the entrance of the servants, to clear the table, and went away to look for someone with whom he could discuss the latest developments of the case.
He was fortunate enough to find Mathilda, and at once took her by the arm and led her off to the library. "I'm getting old, Tilda - too old for this kind of thing!" he told her. "Yesterday I thought that if only the cloud could be lifted from Stephen, nothing else would matter. Today I find myself with a possibility so horrible - Tilda, who, I ask of you, could bear such a grudge against Stephen?"
"It might not be so much a question of a grudge as an instinct of pure sauve qui petit," she pointed out.
"No one but a snake in the grass could do such a thing!" She said dryly: "Anyone capable of stabbing his host in the back would surely be quite capable of throwing the blame on to someone else."
"Mottisfont?" he said. "Roydon? Paula? How can you think such a thing of any one of them?"
"I envy you your touching faith in human nature, Joe."
She was sorry, however, that she had said that, for Joseph took it as a cue, and said in a very noble way that he thanked God he had got faith in human nature. While she did not doubt that his trusting disposition had sustained a severe shock, and could even be sorry for his distress, she was in no mood to tolerate play-acting, and soon shook him off. Between his relief at knowing Stephen to be exonerated and his dread of discovering that his beloved niece, or his old friend Mottisfont, or poor young Roydon was the guilty party, he was so spiritually torn that the optimism of a lifetime seemed to be in danger of deserting him.
Of the three people now, presumably, equally suspected of having murdered Nathaniel, Paula showed the most coolness. She discussed, with a cold-bloodedness worthy of Stephen, the chances of Roydon's having done the deed, and said that, speaking from an artistic point of view, she hoped that he hadn't, since he had a Future before him.
"I imagine I must be out of the running," she said, walking about the room in her usual restless way. "No one could suspect me of trying to throw the blame on to my own brother! If there had been any bequests to them in Uncle's will, I should have said that one of the servants had done it, probably Ford; but as it is they none of them had the slightest motive." She turned her brilliant gaze upon Mathilda, adding impulsively: "If one wasn't a suspect oneself, wouldn't it be interesting, Mathilda? I think I could actually enjoy it!"
"Neither Joe nor I are suspects, and I can assure you we aren't enjoying it!" said Mathilda.