"Mother, I must know; is your head worrying you again?"
"I didn't say it was; what makes you ask?"
"Because you sit pressing it with your hand so often. Does it ache?"
"A little, but it's nothing at all; don't worry, darling; go on with your studying."
Joan often discovered her now crying quietly by herself, but as she came in her mother would make as though to whisk the tears away.
"Mother, you're crying!"
"No, I'm not, dearest; my eyes are a little weak, that's all."
Towards Elizabeth she appeared to have changed even more completely. Now she was always urging her to come to meals. "You'll want to talk things over with Joan," she would say. "Please stop to lunch to-day, Elizabeth; you two must have a thousand plans to discuss."
She spoke quite openly to Elizabeth about Joan's chances of taking a scholarship at Cambridge, and what their life together would be in London. She sighed very often, it is true, and sometimes her eyes would fill with tears, but when this happened she would smile bravely. "Don't take any notice of me, Elizabeth; I'm just a foolish old woman."
Joan's heart ached with misery. This new, submissive, gentle mother was like the pathetic figure of her childhood; a creature difficult to resist, and still more difficult to coerce. Something so utterly helpless that it called up all the chivalry and protectiveness of which her nature was capable.