It turned out, unfortunately for everybody else, that this was an understatement. Nathaniel had a good deal more to say, on subjects which ranged from the decadence of modern drama and the puppyishness of modem dramatists to the folly of all women in general and of his niece in particular. He added a rider to the effect that Paula's mother would have done better to have stayed at home to look after her daughter than to spend her time gadding about marrying every Tom, Dick, and Harry she met.
It was now felt by all who were privileged to hear these remarks that it would be advisable to get Roydon out of the way until Nathaniel's wrath had had time to cool. Mathilda very nobly put herself forward, and told Roydon that she had been immensely interested in Wormwood, and would like to have a talk with him about it. Roydon, who, besides being rather impressed by Mathilda, was naturally eager to talk about his play, allowed himself to be manoeuvred out of the room just as Joseph joined the stricken group about his brother, and, with ill-timed jocosity, smote him lightly on the back, saying: "Well, well, Nat, we're a couple of old-stagers, eh? A crude, sometimes a violent piece of work. Yet not without merit, I think. What do you say?"
Nathaniel at once became a cripple. He said: "My lumbago! Damn you, don't do that!" and tottered to a chair, one hand to the small of his back and his manly form bent with suffering.
"Why, I thought it was all right again!" said Valerie innocently.
Nathaniel, who had closed his eyes, opened them to cast a baleful glance in her direction, and replied in the voice of one whose days were attended by anguish bravely borne: "The least touch brings it on!"
"Rubbish!" said Paula, with quite unnecessary emphasis. "You weren't even thinking about your lumbago a minute ago! You're a miserable humbug, Uncle Nat!"
Nathaniel rather liked being abused, but he resented having his lumbago belittled, and said that the day might come when Paula would be sorry she had said that.
Maud, who was rolling up her knitting-wool, said in her sensible way that he had better have some antiphlogistin, if it was really bad.
"Of course it's bad!" snapped Nathaniel. "And don't think I'm going to have any of that muck on me, because I'm not! If anyone had the least consideration - But I suppose that's too much to expect! As though it isn't enough to have the house filled with a set of rackety people, I'm forced to sit and listen to a play I should have thought any decent woman would have blushed to sit through!"
"When you talk about decent women you make me sick!" flashed Paula. "If you can't appreciate a work of genius, so much the worse for you! You don't want to put your hand in your pocket: that's why you're making all this fuss! You're mean, and hypocritical, and I despise you from the bottom of my soul!"