Emma’s fingers began to strum the arm of her chair nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you mean that the old Philip wasn’t real, why, I think you’re saying a crazy thing. It’s this new one who’s queer. Do you mean to insinuate that I, his own mother ... the one who bore him ... who gave him life, doesn’t know who the real Philip is?”
It was clear that she was “working herself up.” Mary did not answer her at once, but when she raised her head, it was to say, with a curious, tense quietness, “No ... if you want the truth, Mrs. Downes, I don’t think you know Philip at all. I think that’s really what’s the matter. You’ve never known him.”
Emma found herself suddenly choked and speechless. “Do you know what you’re saying? I’ve never had any one say such a thing to me before ... me, his own mother! Why, do you know what we’ve been to each other ... Philip and me?” She plunged into a long recital of their intimacy, of the beautiful relationship that had always existed between them, of the sacrifices she had made. It went on and on, and Mary, listening, thought, “That’s how she talks to him. That’s why he can’t get free of her.” Suddenly she hated Emma. And then she heard Emma saying, in a cold voice, “Of course, I suppose in one way you do know him better than I do—in one way.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You know what I mean. You ought to know ... you ... you ... who have stolen him away from me and from his own wife.”
Mary’s fingers dug suddenly into the horsehair of her chair. She felt a sudden primitive desire to fling herself upon Emma, to pull her hair, to choke her. The old tomboyish spirit, dead for so long, seemed suddenly to breathe and stir with life. She thought quickly, “I mustn’t. I mustn’t. It’s what she’d like me to do—to put myself on a level with herself. And I mustn’t, for Philip’s sake. It’s all bad enough as it is.” She grew suddenly rigid with the effort of controlling herself. She managed to say in a quiet voice, “I think you’re talking nonsense. I think you’re a little crazy.”
“Crazy, am I? That’s a nice thing to say!”
“I have talked to Philip just once since he came home, and that was on the day I met you in the street. I didn’t try to find him. He came to me.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth. Beyond that I don’t care what you believe.”