'Yes, it's I, Mrs. Barker,' said Pitt, coming in and beginning at once to throw off his greatcoat. 'In the usual room? Is the colonel less well than common?'
'Well, no, sir, not to call less well, as I knows on. It's the time o' year, sir, I make bold to imagine. He has a headache bad, that he has, and he's gone off to bed; but Miss Esther's well—so as she can be.'
Pitt got out of his greatcoat and gloves, and waited for no more. He had a certain vague expectation of the delight his appearance would give, and was a little eager to see it. So he went in with a bright face to surprise Esther.
The girl was sitting by the table reading a book she had laid close under the lamp; reading with a very grave face, Pitt saw too, and it a little sobered the brightness of his own. It was not the dulness of stagnation or of sorrow this time; at least Esther was certainly busily reading; but it was sober, steady business, not the absorption of happy interest or excitement. She looked up carelessly as the door opened, then half incredulously as she saw the entering figure, then she shut her book and rose to meet him. But then she did not show the lively pleasure he had expected; her face flushed a little, she hardly smiled, she met him as if he were more or less a stranger,—with much more dignity and less eagerness than he was accustomed to from her. Pitt was astonished, and piqued, and curious. However, he followed her lead, in a measure.
'How do you do, Queen Esther?' he said, holding out his hand.
'How do you do, Pitt?' she answered, taking it; but with the oddest mingling of reserve and doubt in her manner; and the great grave eyes were lifted to his face for a moment, with, it seemed to him, something of inquiry or questioning in them.
'Are you not glad to see me?'
'Yes,' she said, with another glance.
'Then why are you not glad to see me?' he asked impetuously.
'I am glad to see you, of course,' she said. 'Won't you sit down?'