and pleases yourself."

Christopher was startled. "Elisabeth, you don't mean that; you know you
don't."

"Yes; I do. I mean that I have always hated you, and that I hate you
more than ever to-day. It was just like you to care more for the
business than you did for me, and never to mind about my disappointment
as long as that nasty old ironworks was satisfied. I tell you I hate
you, and I hate the works, and I hate everything connected with you."

Christopher looked utterly astonished. He had no idea, he said to
himself, that Elisabeth cared so much about going to Coulson's circus;
and he could not see anything in the frustration of a day's excursion to
account for such a storm of indignation as this. He did not realize that
it was the rage of a monarch whose kingdom was in a state of rebellion,
and whose dominion seemed in danger of slipping away altogether.
Elisabeth might not understand Christopher; but Christopher was not
always guiltless of misunderstanding Elisabeth.

"And it was just like you," Elisabeth went on, "not to let me know till
the last minute, when it was too late for anything to be done. If you
had only had the consideration--I may say the mere civility--to send
word last night that your royal highness could not be bothered with me
and my affairs to-day, I could have arranged with Alan Tremaine to take
me. He is always able to turn his attention for a time from his own
pleasure to other people's."

"But I thought I told you that it was not until I got to the works this
morning that I discovered it would be impossible for me to take you to
Burlingham to-day."

"Then you ought to have found it out sooner."

"Hang it all! I really can not find out things before they occur. Clever
as I am, I am not quite clever enough for that. If I were, I should soon
make my own fortune by telling other people theirs."

But Elisabeth was too angry to be flippant. "The fact is you care for
nothing but yourself and your horrid old business. I always told you how
it would be."

"You did. For whatever faults you may have to blame yourself,
over-indulgence toward mine will never be one of them. You can make your
conscience quite clear on that score." Christopher was as determined to
treat the quarrel lightly as Elisabeth was to deal with it on serious
grounds.

"You have grown into a regular, commonplace, money-grubbing, business
man, with no thoughts for anything higher than making iron and money and
vulgar thin