Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer

to behave sensibly! After all, though I suppose I'm the last person to preach wisdom, as this world knows it (for I'm afraid I've never had a scrap of it my whole life long!), it would be silly, wouldn't it, to throw away all this just out of perversity?"
    A wave of his hand indicated their surroundings. Valerie's eyes brightened. "Oh, Mr. Herriard, is he really going to leave everything to Stephen?"
    "You mustn't ask me that, my dear," Joseph replied. "I've done my best, that's all I can say, and now it depends on Stephen, and on you, too."
    "Yes, but I don't believe Mr. Herriard likes me much," objected Valerie. "It's funny, because generally I go over big with old men. I don't know why, I'm sure."
    "Look in your mirror!" responded Joseph gallantly. "I'm afraid poor Nat is a bit of a misogynist. You mustn't mind that. Just keep that young man of yours in order, that's all I ask."
    "Well, I'll try," said Valerie. "Not that he's likely to pay any attention to me, because he never does."
    "Now you're talking nonsense!" Joseph rallied her playfully.
    "Well, all I can say is that it seems to me he pays a darned sight more attention to Mathilda Clare than he does to me," said Valerie. "In fact, I wonder you don't set her on to him!"
    "Tilda?" exclaimed Joseph. "No, no, my dear, you're quite wrong there! Good gracious me, as though Stephen would ever look twice at Tilda!"
    "Oh, do you honestly think so?" she said hopefully. "Of course, she isn't in the least pretty. I mean, I like her awfully, and all that sort of thing, but I shouldn't call her attractive, would you?"
    "Not a bit!" said Joseph. "Tilda's just a good sort. And now we must go and wash our hands, or we shall both be late for tea, and I shall be making Stephen jealous! I'll just lean the steps up against the wall, and finish the decorations after tea. There! I don't think they'll be in anyone's way, do you?"
    Since the half-landing was a broad one, the steps were not, strictly speaking, in anyone's way, but Nathaniel, when he came out of the library, a few minutes later, took instant exception to them, and said that he wished to God Joe would come to the end of all this tomfoolery.
    Stephen, descending the stairs, identified himself with this wish in no uncertain tones.
    "Now then, you two wet-blankets!" said Joseph. "Tea! Ah, there you are, Maud, my dear! We wait for you to lead the way. Come along, Nat, old man! Come along, Stephen!"
    "Makes you feel quite at home, doesn't he?" Stephen said, grinning at Nathaniel.
    Joseph's heartiness so nauseated Nathaniel that this malicious remark made him feel quite friendly towards his nephew. He gave a snort of laughter, and followed Maud into the drawing-room.

----
    Chapter Four

    Joseph managed to tell Mathilda during the course of tea that he had (as he expressed it) tipped the wink to Valerie. She thought his impulse kind but misguided, but he triumphantly called her attention to the better relationship already existing between Stephen and Nathaniel. Whether this arose from the exertion of Valerie's influence, or whether, faced by the prospect of having a play read aloud to them by its author, they had been drawn momentarily together by a bond of mutual misfortune, was a point Mathilda felt to be as yet undecided, but it was evident that Stephen was making an effort to please his uncle.
    The thought of the approaching reading lay heavy on Mathilda's brain. At no time fond of being read to, she thought the present hour and milieu so ill-chosen that nothing short of a miracle could save this party from disruption. Glancing at Roydon, who was nervously crumbling a cake, she felt a stir of pity for him. He was so much in earnest, torn between his belief in himself and his natural dread of reading his play to what he could not but recognise as an unsympathetic audience. She moved across the room to a chair beside him, and said, undercover of an interchange of noisy badinage between Valerie and Joseph: "I wish you'd tell me