"It is not a theatrical lodging-house!" said Roydon, goaded to madness. "It is, as you will shortly perceive, a bawdy lodging-house!"
Maud's placid voice broke the stunned silence. "I expect they're just as dirty," she said.
"Look here!" began Nathaniel thunderously.
Joseph intervened in a hurry. "Too many interruptions! We shall be putting Roydon off if we go on like this! I'm sure we're none of us so old-fashioned that we mind a little outspokenness!"
"Speak for yourself!" said Nathaniel.
"He is speaking for himself," said Stephen. "To do him justice, he is also speaking for most of the assembled company."
"Perhaps you would rather I didn't read you any more?" suggested Roydon stiffly. "I warn you, it is not meat for weak stomachs!"
"Oh, you must go on!" Valerie exclaimed. "I know I'm going to adore it. Do, everybody, stop interrupting!"
"She sits motionless, staring at her reflection in the mirror," suddenly declaimed Paula, in thrilling accents. "Then she picks up a lipstick, and begins wearily to rub it on her mouth. A knock falls on the door. With a movement of instinctive coquetry, she pats her curls into position, straightens her tired body, and calls, "Come in!" '
The spectacle of Paula enacting these movements in the improbable setting of a respectable drawing-room proved to be too much for Mathilda. She explained between chokes that she was very sorry, but that recitations always had this deplorable effect on her.