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I forget why, but I think he was riding to some place or other. I know it was extremely dramatic, but it is many years since I last did it, and I have forgotten it."
    Everyone breathed again. Paula said that she didn't go in for recitations, but that if Uncle Nat had not elected to play Bridge, she would have asked Willoughby to read his play to them.
    "That would have been very enjoyable, I expect," said Maud placidly.
    It was not Nathaniel's custom to keep late hours, nor was he the kind of host who altered his habits to suit the convenience of his guests. At eleven o'clock, the Bridgeplayers came back into the drawing-room, where a tray of drinks was awaiting them, and Nathaniel said that for his part he was going to bed.
    Edgar Mottisfont ventured to say: "I had hoped to have a chat with you, Nat."
    Nathaniel darted a look at him from under his bushy brows. "Can't talk business at this hour of night," he said.
    "Well, I want a word with you, too," said Paula.
    "You won't get it," Nathaniel replied, with a short laugh.
    Maud was gathering up her cards. "Dear me, eleven already? I think I shall go up too."
    Valerie looked rather appalled at this prospect of having to retire at such an unaccustomed hour, but was relieved to hear Joseph say cheerfully: "Well, I hope no one else means to run off yet! The night's young, eh, Valerie? What do you say to going into the billiard-room, and turning on the wireless?"
    "You'd be a great deal better in bed," said Nathaniel, on whom Joseph's high spirits seemed to exercise a baleful influence.
    "Not I!" Joseph declared. "I'll tell you what, Nat: you'd be much better enjoying yourself with us!"
    His evil genius prompted him to clap his brother on the back as he said this. It was plain to everyone that the playful blow fell between Nat's shoulders, but Nathaniel, who hated to be touched, at once groaned, and jaculated: "My lumbago!"
    He left the room withh the gait of a cripple, holding his hand to the small of his back, in a gesture which his relatives knew well, but which made Valerie open her lovely eyes very wide, and say: "I'd no idea lumbago was as bad as that!"
    "It isn't. That's just my dear Uncle Nat playing up," said Stephen, handing a whisky-and-soda to Mathilda.
    "No, no, that isn't quite fair!" protested Joseph. "Why, I've known poor old Nat to be set fast with it! I'm a stupid fellow: I daresay I did jar him. I wonder if I had better go after him?"
    "No, Joe," said Mathilda kindly. "You mean well, but you'll only annoy him. Why is our little Paula looking like the Tragic Muse?"
    "This awful house!" ejaculated Paula. "How any of you can spend an hour in it and not feel the atmosphere - !"
    "Pray silence for Mrs. Siddons!" said Stephen, regarding her with a sardonic eye.
    "Oh, you can scoff!" she flung at him. "But even you must feel the tension!"
    "Well, do you know, it's an awfully funny thing, because I'm not a bit psychic, or anything like that, but I do see what Paula means," said Valerie. "It's a kind of an atmosphere." She turned to Roydon. "You could write a marvellous play about it, couldn't you?"
    "I don't know that it would be quite in my line," he replied.
    "Oh, I have an absolute conviction that you're the sort of person who could write a marvellous play about simply anything!" said Valerie, raising admiring eyes to his face.
    "Even guinea-pigs?" asked Stephen, introducing a discordant note.
    The playwright flushed. "Very funny!"
    Mathilda perceived that Mr. Roydon was unused to being laughed at. "Let me advise you to pay little if any heed to my cousin Stephen!" she said.
    Stephen never minded what Mathilda said to him; he only grinned; but Joseph, at no time remarkable for tact, brought the saturnine look back to his face by saying: "Oh, we all know what an old bear Stephen likes to pretend to be!"
    "God!" said Stephen, very distinctly.
    Paula sprang up, thrusting the hair back from her brow with one of her hasty gestures. "That's what I mean! You're all of you