"Why?" asked Stephen.
"Now, now, now!" chided Joseph, overhearing this interchange, and bustling forward. "My dear Edgar! Come in, come in! You must be frozen, all of you! Look at the sky! We're going to have a white Christmas. I shouldn't be surprised if we found ourselves tobogganing in a day or two."
"I should," said Stephen, following the others into the house. "Hallo, Mathilda!"
"I thought I heard your mellow accents," said Mathilda. "Spreading goodwill, my sweet?"
Stephen allowed his bitter mouth to relax into a smile at this greeting, but as Nathaniel came into the hall at that moment, and favoured him with nothing more than a nod, and a curt "Glad to see you, Stephen," the disagreeable expression returned to his face, and he immediately laid himself out to be objectionable to everyone within range.
Nathaniel, having shaken hands in a perfunctory fashion with Miss Dean, and said "Oh!" dampingly to her announcement that she simply loved coming to spend Christmas in his perfectly fascinating house, lost no time in whisking himself and Edgar Mottisfont into his study.
"Remind me some time to give you some hints and tips on how to put yourself over with your Uncle Nat," Mathilda said kindly to Miss Dean.
"Blast you, shut up!" snapped Stephen. "God, I wonder why I came?"
"Probably because you couldn't think of anywhere else to go," said Mathilda. Catching sight of Joseph's absurdly dismayed countenance, she added: "Anyway, now you are here, behave yourself! Would you like to go up to your room now, Valerie, or have tea first?"
Miss Dean, whose major preoccupation in life was the possibility of her hair becoming disarranged, or her complexion impaired, chose to go to her room. This put Joseph in mind of his wife, but by the time he had run her to earth in the drawing-room, Mathilda had escorted Valerie upstairs.