'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, pass 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.