Now began a period of petty irritations, petty tyrannies and miseries. Mrs. Ogden watched! She was gentle and overtired and pathetic, but oh! so terribly watchful. Joan could feel her watching, watching her, watching Elizabeth. Things happened, only the merest trifles, yet they counted. One day it was a hat, another a pair of shoes or a pattern of knitting wool. Perhaps Elizabeth would say: "Put your black hat on this afternoon, Joan; it suits you." Then Joan would look up and see Mrs. Ogden standing inside the dining-room door. "Joan!" "Yes, dearest?" "I dislike you in that hat, put the blue one on, darling." A thousand little unexpected things were always cropping up to give rise to these thinly veiled quarrels. Even Milly began to feel uncomfortable and ill at ease, but with I characteristic decision she solved the problem for herself. "I shan't stay here when I'm bigger, Joan; I shall go away," she announced one day. Joan was startled; the words made her uneasy, they reopened the eternal question, presenting a new facet. She began to ask herself whether she too did not long to go away, whether she would want to stay at Seabourne when she was older, and above all whether she loved her mother enough to stay for ever in Seabourne. They were sitting in the school-room, and Joan's eyes sought Elizabeth, who answered the unspoken thought. She turned to Joan with a quick, unusual gesture. "Joan, you mustn't stay here always either." "Not stay here, Elizabeth? Where should I go?" "Oh, I don't know; to Cambridge perhaps, and then--oh, well, then you must work, do things with your life." "But, Mother----" Elizabeth was silent. Joan pressed her. "Elizabeth, do you think Mother would ever consent?" "I don't know; you have the brain to do it if you choose." "But suppose it made her unhappy?" "Why should it? She'll probably be very proud of you if you make good--in any case you'll have to leave her if you marry." "But it might--oh! can't you see that it might make her unhappy, dreadfully unhappy?" "What do you feel about it yourself, Joan; are you ambitious, I mean?" Joan was silent for a moment, then she said: "I don't think I am really ambitious. I mean I don't think that I could ever push everything aside for the sake of some big idea; I hate being hurt and hurting, and I think you've got to do that if you're really ambitious; but I want to go on working, frightfully." "Well, you'll probably get through your exam, all right." "And if I do, what then?" "Then your Oxford Local, I suppose." "Yes, but then?" "Well, then we shall have to consider. I should think Cambridge for you, Joan--though I don't know; perhaps Oxford is better in some respects." She paused and appeared to reflect. Joan looked at her fixedly. She thought: "This is said to me in direct opposition to Mother; it's being said on purpose. Elizabeth hates her and I ought to hate Elizabeth, but I _don't_!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN 1