‘Angry?’ Oh, I am SICK. The misery of it! The terror of it! If it were anybody but Judy! Can’t you imagine the passion of a temperament like that in a woman who has all these years been feeding on herself? I tell you she will take him from my very arms. And he will go—to I dare not imagine what catastrophe! Who can prevent it? Who can prevent it?’
‘There is you,’ I said.
Lady Chichele laughed hysterically. ‘I think you ought to say, “There are you.” I—what can I do? Do you realize that it’s JUDY? My friend—my other self? Do you think we can drag all that out of it? Do you think a tie like that can be broken by an accident—by a misfortune? With it all I ADORE Judy Harbottle. I love her, as I have always loved her, and—it’s damnable, but I don’t know whether, whatever happened, I wouldn’t go on loving her.’
‘Finish your peg,’ I said. She was sobbing.
‘Where I blame myself most,’ she went on, ‘is for not seeing in him all that makes him mature to her—that makes her forget the absurd difference between them, and take him simply and sincerely as I know she does, as the contemporary of her soul if not of her body. I saw none of that. Could I, as his mother? Would he show it to me? I thought him just a charming boy, clever, too, of course, with nice instincts and well plucked; we were always proud of that, with his delicate physique. Just a boy! I haven’t yet stopped thinking how different he looks without his curls. And I thought she would be just kind and gracious and delightful to him because he was my son.’
‘There, of course,’ I said, ‘is the only chance.’
‘Where—what?’
‘He is your son.’
‘Would you have me appeal to her? Do you know I don’t think I could?’
‘Dear me, no. Your case must present itself. It must spring upon her and grow before her out of your silence, and if you can manage it, your confidence. There is a great deal, after all, remember, to hold her in that. I can’t somehow imagine her failing you. Otherwise—’