"Then what do you think it is?"
"Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Certainly—why not?"
"Because, when I do tell you, you'll get angry. Because it is a presumption on my part, I suppose, to say what I am going to say; because—oh! because after all I'm only the governess and you are her mother, but for all that I ought to tell you what I think."
"You bewilder me, Elizabeth, I can't imagine what all this means; I didn't know, you see, that Joan made you her confidante."
"She doesn't, and possibly that's a pity; I've never encouraged her to confide in me, and now I'm beginning to wonder whether I haven't been a fool."
"I think that I, and not you, Elizabeth, would be the person in whom Joan would confide."
"Yes, of course," said Elizabeth, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Elizabeth! I don't like all this; I should be sorry if we couldn't get on together; it would, I frankly admit, be a disadvantage for the children to lose you, but you must understand at once that I cannot, will not, allow you to usurp my prerogatives."
"I've never done so, knowingly, Mrs. Ogden."