"I think that kiss was in some sort a revelation to me. I did not fully recognise it then, what the revelation was; but I think, ever since I have been conscious, vaguely, that there was an invisible silken thread of some sort binding me to you; and that I should never be quite right till I followed the clue and found you again. The vagueness is gone, and has given place to the most daylight certainty."
"I am glad of that," said Esther demurely, though speaking with a little effort. "You always liked certainties."
"Did you miss me?"
"Pitt, more than I can possibly tell you! Not then only, but all the time since. Only one thing has kept me from being very downhearted sometimes, when time pa.s.sed, and we heard nothing of you, and I was obliged to give you up."
"You should not have given me up."
"Yes; there was nothing else for it. I found it was best not to think about you at all. Happily I had plenty of duties to think of. And duties, if you take hold of them right, become pleasures."
"Doing them for the Master."
"Yes, and for our fellow-creatures too. Both interests come in."
"And so make life full and rich, even in common details of it. But, Queen Esther,--my Queen!--do you know that you will be my Queen always?
That word expresses your future position, as far as I am concerned."
"No," said Esther a little nervously; "I think hardly. Where there is a queen, there is commonly also a king somewhere, you know."
"His business is to see the queen"s commands carried out."
"We will not quarrel about it," said Esther, laughing. "But, after all, Pitt, that is not like you. You always knew your own mind, and always had your own way, when I used to know you."
"It is your turn."
"It would be a very odd novelty in my life," said Esther. "But now, Pitt, I really must go and see about luncheon. Papa will be down, and Mrs. Barker does not know that you are here. And it would be a sort of relief to take hold of something so commonplace as luncheon; I seem to myself to have got into some sort of unreal fairyland."
"I am in fairyland too, but it is real."
"Let me go, Pitt, please!"
"Luncheon is of no consequence."
"Papa will think differently."
"I will go out and got some oysters, to conciliate him."
"To _conciliate_ him!"
"Yes. He will need conciliating, I can tell you. Do you suppose he will look on complacently and see you, who have been wholly his possession and property, pa.s.s over out of his hands into mine? It is not human nature."
Esther stood still and coloured high.
"Does papa know?"
"He knows all about it, Queen Esther; _except_ what you may have said to me. I think he understood what I was going to say to you."
"Poor papa!" said Esther thoughtfully.
"Not at all," said Pitt inconsistently. "We will take care of him together, much better than you could alone."
Esther drew a long breath.
"Then you speak to Barker, and I will get some oysters," said Pitt with a parting kiss, and was off in a moment.
The luncheon after all pa.s.sed off quite tolerably well. The colonel took the oysters, and Pitt, with a kind of grim acquiescence. He was an old soldier, and no doubt had not forgotten all the lessons once learned in that impressive school; and as every one knows, to accept the inevitable and to make the best of a lost battle are two of those lessons. Not that Colonel Gainsborough would seriously have tried to fight off Pitt and his pretensions, if he could; at least, not as things were. Pitt had told him his own circ.u.mstances; and the colonel knew that without barbarity he could not refuse ease and affluence and an excellent position for his daughter, and condemn her to school-keeping and Major Street for the rest of her life; especially since the offer was accompanied with no drawbacks, except the one trifle, that Esther must marry. That was an undoubtedly bitter pill to swallow; but the colonel swallowed it, and hardly made a wry face. He would be glad to get away from Major Street himself. So he ate his oysters, as I said, grimly; was certainly courteous, if also cool; and Pitt even succeeded in making the conversation flow pa.s.sably well, which is hard to do, when it rests upon one devoted person alone.
Esther did everything but talk.
After the meal was over, the colonel lingered only a few minutes, just enough for politeness, and then went off to his room again, with the dry and somewhat uncalled-for remark, that they "did not want him."
"That is true!" said Pitt humorously.
"Pitt," said Esther hurriedly, "if you don"t mind, I want to get my work. There is something I must do, and I can do it just as well while you are talking."
She went off, and returned with drawing-board and pencils; took her seat, and prepared to go on with a drawing that had been begun.
"What are the claims of this thing to be considered work?" said Pitt, after watching her a minute or two.
"It is a copy, that I shall need Monday morning. Only a little thing. I can attend to you just the same."
"A copy for whom?"
"One of my scholars," she said, with a smile at him.
"That copy will never be wanted."
"Yes, I want it for Monday; and Monday I should have no time to do it; so I thought I would finish it now. It will not take me long, Pitt."
"Queen Esther," said he, laying his hand over hers, "all that is over."
"Oh no, Pitt!--how should it?" she said, looking at him now, since it was no use to look at her paper.
"I cannot have you doing this sort of work any longer."
"_But!_" she said, flushing high, "yes, I must."
"That has been long enough, my queen! I cannot let you do it any longer. You may give me lessons; n.o.body else."
"But!"--said Esther, catching her breath; then, not willing to open the whole chapter of discussion she saw ahead, she caught at the nearest and smallest item. "You know, I am under obligations; and I must meet them until other arrangements are made. I am expected, I am depended on; I must not fail. I must give this lesson Monday, and others."
"Then I will do this part of the work," said he, taking the pencil from her fingers. "Give me your place, please."
Esther gave him her chair and took his. And then she sat down and watched the drawing. Now and then her eyes made a swift pa.s.sage to his face for a half second, to explore the features so well known and yet so new; but those were a kind of fearful glances, which dreaded to be caught, and for the most part her eyes were down on the drawing and on the hands busied with it. Hands, we know, tell of character; and Esther"s eyes rested with secret pleasure on the shapely fingers, which in their manly strength and skilful agility corresponded so well to what she knew of their possessor. The fingers worked on, for a time, silently.
"Pitt, this is oddly like old times!" said Esther at last.
"Things have got into their right grooves again," said he contentedly.