Joan felt afraid. Through all the turbulent nonsense of Elizabeth's tirade she discerned an undercurrent of serious import. It was disconcerting to find that Elizabeth could rage, but it was not that which frightened her, but rather a sudden new feeling of responsibility towards Elizabeth, different in quality from anything that had gone before. She became suddenly aware that she could make or mar not only herself but Elizabeth, that Elizabeth had taken root in her and would blossom or fade according to the sustenance she could provide. "It's you, _you_, Joan!" she was saying. "Are you serious, are you going to break away in the end, or is it--am I--going to be all wasted?" "You mean, am I going to leave Seabourne?" "Yes, that is what I mean; are you going to make good?" "Good God!" Joan exclaimed bitterly. "How can I?" "You can and you must. Haven't you any character? Have you no personality worthy to express itself apart from Seabourne. No will to help yourself with? Are you going to remain in this rut all the rest of your life, or at least until you're too old to care, simply because you've not got the courage to break through a few threads of ridiculous sentiment? Why it's not even sentiment, it's sentimentality!" Her voice died down and faltered: "Joan, for my sake----" They stared at each other, wide-eyed at their own emotions. They realized that all in a moment they had turned a sharp corner and come face to face with a crisis, that there was now no going back, that they must go forward together or each one alone. For a long time neither spoke, then Joan said quietly: "You think that I'm able to do as you wish, that I'm able to break through what you call 'the threads of sentimentality,' and you despise me in your heart for hesitating; but if you knew how these threads eat into my flesh you might despise me less for enduring them." Elizabeth stretched out a scarred hand and touched Joan timidly; her anger had left her as suddenly as it had come, she felt humble and lonely. "You see," she said, "I'm a woman who has made nothing of life myself and I know the bitterness that comes over one at times, the awful emptiness; but if I can see you happy it won't matter ever again. I don't want any triumphs myself, not now; I only want them for you. I want to sit in the sun and warmth of your success like a lizard on an Italian wall; I want positively to bask. It's not a very energetic programme, perhaps, and I never thought I'd live to feel that way about anything; but that's what it's come to, you see, my dear, and you can't have it in you to leave me shivering in the cold!" Joan clung to the firm, marred hand like a drowning man to a spar; she felt at that moment that she could never let it go. In her terror lest the hand should some day not be there she grew pale and trembled. She looked into Elizabeth's troubled eyes. "What do you want of me?" she asked. "If I told you, would you be afraid?"