“Yes, he told you I wouldn’t come home, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, with a sudden flash of anger. “Yes ... he told me. I wish you wouldn’t see so much of him, Philip. He’s a wicked man.”
He made no response to this sudden, feeble sally of the old authority. He had, she discovered with awe, that old trick of his father’s—of not answering in an argument unless he had something to say. It was an unfair method, because it always kept the argument upon the level of reason, excluding all the force of the emotions.
“And I’m not coming home any more to sleep, Ma. That’s all finished.”
He must have seen the look of fear in her eyes. It was that look he had seen there whenever, for a moment, she seemed to lose control of that solid world she had built up.
“But, Philip ... it’s your house ... your own home. You’ve never had any other.” He said nothing, and she asked, “Where are you going to sleep?”
Slowly, and then carefully, so that it would hurt her as little as possible, he told her about the stable at Shane’s Castle, and his plan of painting. She listened, half believing that she could not be in her right mind, that what she heard was only part of a nightmare. She kept interrupting him, saying, “But, Philip, you never told me ... I didn’t know,” and when he had finished, she said abruptly, “That wasn’t the plan I had for you, Philip; I’ve been talking with Reverend Castor and he thinks we could arrange to get you a good congregation.”
“No ... that’s all finished. It’s no use even talking of it.”
She went on, ignoring him. “And if that didn’t please you, I thought ... well, you could take the restaurant because, well ...” she looked away from him, “you see, I’m thinking of getting married.”
She saw his face grow red with anger. “Not to that humbug, Moses Slade!”