As they are discussing the day's events, Elizabeth tells Proctor that Mary Warren went to Salem. What reason did Mary give Elizabeth for going to...

Mary Warren says she has to go to Salem to

attend the court of which she is now an official. John Proctor has forbidden Mary to go
to Salem
and is angry when Elizabeth says that she has gone there anyway.
Elizabeth responds, rather
surprisingly, that she is frightened of Mary
Warren now. John asks how Elizabeth, the mistress
of the house and the wife
of a substantial citizen, can possibly be frightened of a
"mouse" like Mary
Warren. Elizabeth replies:

It
is a
mouse no more. I forbid her go and she raises up her chin like the daughter of a prince
and
says to me, "I must go to Salem, Goody Proctor; I am an official of
the
court!"

When Mary returns from
Salem, we find that
her pride in her new position as an official of the court
has indeed made her arrogant and
defiant, a complete reversal of her former
timidity. She refuses to answer John when he
questions her and says by way of
reproof:

Four judges and
the kings
deputy sat down to dinner with us but an hour ago. II would have you speak civilly
to
me from this out.

This shows the
inversion and chaos
which has begun to take hold of Salem in which the
"children," girls like Mary Warren
and Abigail Williams who formerly had no
authority at all in the community, now have a new and
sinister power to ruin
or even end the lives of those who once looked down on

them.