Vivian gave a short laugh. “She thinks she is, anyway. I’m afraid I’ve got no time for these conventionally minded women who think it incumbent upon them to shed tears just because someone whom they detested has died!”
“Here, I say, that’s coming it a bit thick!” protested Conrad. “I don’t say Father didn’t treat her to rather a rough passage, but you’ve got no right to say that she detested him! I should have thought that she’d be bound to be cut up about it!”
“Then you won’t be disappointed,” said Vivian acidly. “She’ll gratify all your ideas of how a bereaved person should behave, I’m sure!”
Clay came into the room at that moment, looking reared and bewildered. “I say, is it true?” he asked. “I’ve just heard — I overslept this morning — I didn’t know a thing! But one of the maids told me — only I simply couldn’t believe it!”
“If you mean, is it true Father’s dead, yes, it is!” said Conrad. “So you can go upstairs again, and take off that bloody awful pullover, and put on something decent!”
“Of course I wouldn’t have put on a coloured thing if I’d known!” Clay said. “I’ll change it after breakfast, naturally. Good lord, though! I — I can’t get over it! How did it happen? When did he die?”
The barely veiled excitement in his voice roused Bart to a flash of anger. “What the devil does it matter to you how he died, or when he died? A fat lot you care! God damn your eyes, you’re glad he’s dead!”
“How dare you's-say such a th-thing?” Clay stammered, flushing to the roots of his hair. “Of course I’m not!”
“Liar!” said Conrad.
Aubrey intervened, saying in his most mannered style: “Sit down, little brother, and try to carry off this very difficult situation with as much grace as you can muster. You really could hardly do better than to model yourself on me. Now, I’m not bewailing Father’s death in the least, but neither am I permitting an indecent elation to appear in my demeanour. As my raiment, so my conduct: subdued but not funereal!”