Her criticisms of Elizabeth afforded Mrs. Ogden a rather tepid satisfaction for a time, but they never quite convinced her, and one day her thoughts stopped short in the very middle of them. She had a moment of clear inward vision; and in that moment she realized the exact and precise reason why, in the last few months, she had grown irritated with Elizabeth. So irritated in fact that nothing that Elizabeth said or did could possibly be right. It was not Elizabeth's familiarity, not the fact that Elizabeth knew the Bensons, not Elizabeth's rather frank English, it was none of these things--it was Joan. Joan was fourteen now, she was growing--growing mentally out of Mrs. Ogden. There was so much these days that they could not discuss together. Joan was a student, a tremendously hard worker; Mrs. Ogden had never been that sort of girl. Even James could help Joan better than she could--James was rather well up in history, for example. But she was not well up in anything; this fact had never struck her before. "Don't be such a damn fool, Mary!" James had said that for so many years that it had ceased to mean anything to her, but now it seemed fraught with dreadful, new possibilities. Would Joan ever come to think her a fool? Would she ever come to think Elizabeth a fool? No, not Elizabeth--wait--there was the menace. Elizabeth had goods for sale that Joan could buy; how was she buying them, that was the question? Was she paying in the copper coin of mere hard work, content if she did Elizabeth credit? Or would she, being Joan, slip in a golden coin of love and admiration, a coin stolen from her almost bankrupt mother? Elizabeth, that happy, clever young creature, with her self-assurance and her interest in Joan, what was she doing with Joan--what did she mean to do with Joan's mother? How much did she want Joan--the real Joan? And if she wanted her, could she get her? Mean, oh, mean! When Elizabeth had everything on her side--when she had youth so obviously on her side--surely she had enough without Joan, surely she need not grow fond of Joan?