Roydon appeared bewildered. He said that costume pieces (with awful scorn) were hardly in his line.
"She seems to have had a very dramatic life," persisted Maud. "It wouldn't be sword-and-cloak, you know."
Joseph intervened hastily, saying that he thought it would hardly be suitable, and could he not persuade Maud to lay aside the book and help him with the tree?
He could not. In the end, only Mathilda responded to his appeal for assistance. She asserted her undying love for tinsel decorations, and professed her eagerness to hang innumerable coloured balls and icicles on to the tree. "Though I think, Joe," she said, when the company had dispersed, "that no one else feels any sympathy with your desire for a Merry Christmas."
"They will, my dear; they will, when it comes to the point," said Joseph, incurably optimistic. "I have got a collection of little presents to hang on the tree. And crackers, of course!"
"Does it strike you that Edgar Mottisfont has got something on his mind?" asked Mathilda.
"Yes," Joseph replied. "I fancy there is some little matter connected with the business which has gone wrong. You know what a stick-in-the-mud Nat is! But it will blow over: you'll see!"
Judging from Mottisfont's crushed demeanour at luncheon, his interview with his sleeping partner had not been in keeping with the Christmas spirit. He looked dejected, while Nathaniel sat in disapproving gloom, repulsing all attempts to draw him into conversation.
Valerie, who seemed during the course of the morning to have made great headway with the dramatist, was unaffected by her host's blighting conduct, but everyone else seemed to feel it. Stephen was frankly morose, his sister restless, Mathilda silent, the dramatist nervous, and Joseph impelled by innate tactlessness to rally the rest of the guests on their lack of spirits.
The gloom induced by himself had the beneficent effect of raising Nathaniel's spirits at least. To find that his own ill-humour had quenched the gaiety of his guests appeared to afford him considerable gratification. Almost he rubbed his hands together with glee; and by the time the company rose from the table, he was so far restored to equanimity as to enquire what his guests proposed to do to amuse themselves during the afternoon.