KREUZER: Mrs. Callifer, I wish you’d be more specific. This is your son.

MRS. CALLIFER: He talked of visiting someone.

KREUZER: Who? (No answer.) Who was he going to visit, Mrs. Callifer?

MRS. CALLIFER (reluctantly): His uncle.

SARA (astonished): William Callifer?

MRS. CALLIFER: It was just a wild notion of his. I don’t suppose he went.

KREUZER: Mrs. Callifer, your son is in a very dark place. We in Europe have had experience of dark places. I know a man who lived five days in a sewer without food. The manhole was in the pavement just in front of his home. All day he heard the voices of strangers and at night there were the footsteps of policemen. He stayed there just under the manhole, waiting for his mother to speak to him and tell him it was safe to come out. He couldn’t trust even his father.

SARA (bitterly): I suppose she never came.

KREUZER: She came.

SARA: Perhaps in Europe they breed mothers.

MRS. CALLIFER (pleading): Sara, my dear—

SARA: But not here. Oh, no. Not here.

KREUZER: It’s time, Mrs. Callifer, to tell us what you know.

MRS. CALLIFER: But there’s nothing I know.

KREUZER: Your son’s in danger. Great danger. Think. If he were hiding in that sewer you’d have risked anything …

MRS. CALLIFER: Of course. It would be easy that way. This is different.

SARA: It’s no good, Dr. Kreuzer. You’re working on a false assumption. Mothers don’t necessarily love their children.

MRS. CALLIFER: That’s not true, Sara. You know it’s not true.

SARA: When I married James I never saw you in our house. But when I divorced him, I became your dear adopted daughter.

MRS. CALLIFER: Henry and I loved you, Sara.

SARA: Yes, so long as James wasn’t there. She’s upright, Dr. Kreuzer, she’s strong, she’s loyal, she has all the wifely virtues. But don’t look for a mother there.

MRS. CALLIFER: I love him.

SARA: Who? Henry? I don’t suppose James told you this, Dr. Kreuzer. It was always Henry—what suited his stomach (not string beans), his mind, his reputation. William Callifer didn’t suit it. He had to go. And then her son. If I had a son, I wouldn’t sacrifice him for my husband. Why do we have to sacrifice people? Why can’t we just let each other be?

MRS. CALLIFER: Henry wasn’t selfish, Sara. He was weak, that’s all. You don’t know yet how weakness can call to you.

SARA: But I don’t want to protect anyone—I’m not a god. I’m not strong enough or wise enough and I don’t want to be protected either—I’m not that cunning.

MRS. CALLIFER: Haven’t you any pity?

SARA: And I haven’t that much pride. You don’t pity an equal.