“You shall not stop me!” cried Lady Mallowe.
“You cannot stop yourself,” said Joan. “That is the worst of it. It is bad enough when we stand and hiss at each other in a stage whisper; but when you lose control over yourself and raise your voice—”
“I came in here to tell you that this is your last chance. I shall never give you another. Do you know how old you are?”
“I shall soon be twenty-seven,” Joan answered. “I wish I were a hundred. Then it would all be over.”
“But it will not be over for years and years and years,” her mother flung back at her. “Have you forgotten that the very rags you wear are not paid for?”
“No, I have not forgotten.” The scene was working itself up on the old lines, as Joan had known it would. Her mother never failed to say the same things, every time such a scene took place.
“You will get no more such rags—paid or unpaid for. What do you expect to do? You don't know how to work, and if you did no decent woman would employ you. You are too good-looking and too bad-tempered.”
Joan knew she was perfectly right. Knowing it, she remained silent, and her silence added to her mother's helpless rage. She moved a step nearer to her and flung the javelin which she always knew would strike deep.
“You have made yourself a laughing-stock for all London for years. You are mad about a man who disgraced and ruined himself.”
She saw the javelin quiver as it struck; but Joan's voice as it answered her had a quality of low and deadly steadiness.