1
ELIZABETH'S attitude towards the new decision to leave Seabourne made
Joan uneasy. Elizabeth said nothing at all, merely nodding her head.
Joan thought that she was worried and unhappy about something, but tried
in vain to find out the reason.
They worked on steadily together; but she began to miss the old
enthusiasm that had made of Elizabeth the perfect teacher. Now she was
dull and dispirited, even a little abstracted at times. It was clear
that her mind was not in their work. Was it because she doubted their
going to London in August? If Elizabeth began to weaken seriously, Joan
felt that all must indeed be lost. She needed support and encouragement,
as never before, now that she had taken the plunge and told her mother
definitely for the last time that she meant to break away. She felt that
with Elizabeth's whole-hearted support she could manage somehow to stand
out against the odds, but if she was not to be believed in, if Elizabeth
lost faith in her, then she doubted her own strength to carry things
through.
"Elizabeth," she said, with a note of fear in her voice, "you feel quite
certain that we shall go?"