She got up and walked feverishly about the room. They _must_ swim against the current; it was ridiculous, preposterous that because she did not marry she should be forced to live a crippled existence. What real difference could it possibly make to her mother's loneliness if her daughter shared a flat with Elizabeth instead of with a husband? No difference at all, except in precedent. Then it was only by submitting to precedent that you could be free? What she was proposing seemed cruel now, even to herself; and why? Because it was not softened and toned down by precedent, not wreathed in romance as the world understood romance. "Good God!" she thought bitterly, "can there be no development of individuality in this world without hurting oneself or someone else?" She clenched her fists. "I don't care, I don't care! I've a right to my life, and I shall go in August. I defy precedent. I'm Joan Ogden, a law unto myself, and I mean to prove it." CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE 1 ELIZABETH'S attitude towards the new decision to leave Seabourne made Joan uneasy. Elizabeth said nothing at all, merely nodding her head. Joan thought that she was worried and unhappy about something, but tried in vain to find out the reason. They worked on steadily together; but she began to miss the old enthusiasm that had made of Elizabeth the perfect teacher. Now she was dull and dispirited, even a little abstracted at times. It was clear that her mind was not in their work. Was it because she doubted their going to London in August? If Elizabeth began to weaken seriously, Joan felt that all must indeed be lost. She needed support and encouragement, as never before, now that she had taken the plunge and told her mother definitely for the last time that she meant to break away. She felt that with Elizabeth's whole-hearted support she could manage somehow to stand out against the odds, but if she was not to be believed in, if Elizabeth lost faith in her, then she doubted her own strength to carry things through. "Elizabeth," she said, with a note of fear in her voice, "you feel quite certain that we shall go?" Elizabeth looked up from the book she was reading. "I don't know, Joan." "But I've told Mother definitely that I intend to go in August." "Yes, I know you have." "But you're doubtful? You think I shall go back on you again?" "You won't mean to do that, but so many things happen, don't they? I think I'm getting superstitious." "Nothing is going to happen this time," said Joan, in a voice which she tried vainly to make firm. "I'm not the weak sort of thing that you seem to think me, and in August I go to London!" Elizabeth took her hand and held it. "I could weep over you!" she said. 2 The days were slipping by. It was now June and Mrs. Ogden still persisted in her refusal to leave Seabourne. On this point Joan found herself up against an opposition stronger than any she had had to meet before. Gently but firmly, her mother stuck to her decision.