“Oh, you can take it,” Henry said, frowning and throwing it back on the table.
Philip looked at him, then suddenly, laughing, walked over to him, “What’s the matter, Henry?” he said catching his arm. “I’ll have it out with the lot of you, I swear I will. You, none of you, say anything—you all just look as though you didn’t know me. You yourself, these last months, have looked as though you’d like to stick a dagger into my back. Now, really, upon my word, I don’t know what I’ve done. I’m engaged to Katherine, but I’ve behaved as decently about it as I can. I’m not going to take her away from you all if I can help it. I’ve made up my mind to that, now that I see how much she cares for you all. I’ve done my best ... I really have. Now, what is it?”
Henry was, in spite of himself, touched by this appeal. He glanced at Philip’s face and thought, again in spite of himself, what a nice one it was. A horrible suspicion came to him that he liked Philip, had always liked him, and this abominable whisper, revealing treachery to all his principles, to all his traditions, to all his moral code, above all to Katherine, infuriated him. He tore his arm away.
“If you want to know,” he cried, “it’s because I think you’re a beast, because you’re not fit to touch Katie—because—because—I know all about you!”
Philip stood there; for a moment a smile trembled to his lips, then was dismissed.
“What do you mean?” he said, sternly.
“Mean?” cried Henry, allowing himself to be carried along on a tide of indignation that seemed, in some way, in spite of itself, to be quite genuine. “Mean? I mean that I’ve known for weeks and weeks the kind of man you are! I know what you did in Moscow for years and years, although you may look so quiet. Do you think you’re the sort of man to marry Katherine? Why, you aren’t fit to touch her hand.”
“Would you mind,” said Philip quietly, “just telling me exactly to what you are referring?”
“Why,” said Henry, dropping his voice and beginning to mumble, “you had—you had a mistress—in Moscow for years, and everyone knew it—and you had a baby—and it died. Everyone knows it.”
“Well,” said Philip quietly, “and what then?”