'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.'