But poor Christopher was very unhappy. It was agony to him when his conscience pulled him one way and Elisabeth pulled him the other; and yet this form of torture was constantly occurring to him. He could not bear to do what he knew was wrong, and he could not bear to vex Elisabeth; yet Elisabeth's wishes and his own ideas of right were by no means always synonymous. His only comfort was the knowledge that his sovereign's anger was, as a rule, short-lived, and that he himself was indispensable to that sovereign's happiness. This was true; but he did not then realize that it was in his office as admiring and sympathizing audience, and not in his person as Christopher Thornley, that he was necessary to Elisabeth. A fuller revelation was vouchsafed to him later.
The next morning Elisabeth was herself again, and was quite ready to enjoy Christopher's society and to excuse his scruples. She knew that self of hers when she said that she wished she had somebody else to play with, in order that she might withdraw the light of her presence from her offending henchman. To thus punish Christopher, until she had found some one to take his place, was a course of action which would not have occurred to her. Elisabeth's pride could never stand in the way of her pleasure; Christopher's, on the contrary, might. It was a remarkable fact that after Christopher had reproved Elisabeth for some fault—which happened neither infrequently nor unnecessarily—he was always repentant and she forgiving; yet nine times out of ten he had been in the right and she in the wrong. But Elisabeth's was one of those exceptionally generous natures which can pardon the reproofs and condone the virtues of their friends; and she bore no malice, even when Christopher had been more obviously right than usual. But she was already enough of a woman to adapt to her own requirements his penitence for right-doing; and on this occasion she took advantage of his chastened demeanour to induce him to assist her in erecting a new shrine to Athene in the wood—which meant that she gave all the directions and he did all the work.
"You are doing it beautifully, Chris—you really are!" she exclaimed with delight. "We shall be able to have a splendid sacrifice this afternoon. I've got some feathers to offer up from the fowl cook is plucking; and they make a much better sacrifice than waste paper."
Christopher was too shy in those days to put the fact into words; nevertheless, the fact remained that Elisabeth interested him profoundly. She was so original, so unexpected, that she was continually providing him with fresh food for thought. Although he was cleverer at lessons than she was, she was by far the cleverer at play; and though he had the finer character, hers was the stronger personality. It was because Elisabeth was so much to him that he now and then worried her easy-going conscience with his strictures; for, to do him justice, the boy was no prig, and would never have dreamed of preaching to anybody except her. But it must be remembered that Christopher had never heard of such things as spiritual evolutions and streams of tendency: to him right or wrong meant heaven or hell—neither more nor less; and he was overpowered by a burning anxiety that Elisabeth should eventually go to heaven, partly for her own sake, and partly (since human love is stronger than dogmas and doctrines) because a heaven, uncheered by the presence of Elisabeth, seemed a somewhat dreary place wherein to spend one's eternity.
"Why do feathers make a better sacrifice than paper?" repeated Christopher, Elisabeth being so much absorbed in his work that she had not answered his question.
"Oh! because they smell; and it seems so much more like a real sacrifice, somehow, if it smells."
"I see. What ideas you do get into your head!"
But Elisabeth's volatile thoughts had flown off in another direction. "You really have got awfully nice-coloured hair," she remarked, Chris having taken his cap off for the sake of coolness, as he was heated with his toil. "I do wish I had light hair like yours. Angels, and goddesses, and princesses, and people of that kind always have golden hair; but only bad fairies and cruel stepmothers have nasty dark hair like me. I think it is horrid to have dark hair."
"I don't: I like dark hair best; and I don't think yours is half bad." Christopher never overstated a case; but then one had the comfort of knowing that he always meant what he said, and frequently a good deal more.