He duly appeared about tea-time, and found Elisabeth consuming the smoke of her anger in the garden.
"I hope you are not very angry with me," he began in a humble tone, sitting down beside her on the old rustic seat; "but I found myself obliged to disappoint you as soon as I got to the works this morning; and I am sure you know me well enough to understand that it wasn't my fault, and that I couldn't help myself."
"I don't know you well enough for anything of the kind," replied Elisabeth, flashing a pair of very bright eyes upon his discomfited face; "but I know you well enough to understand that you are just a mass of selfishness and horridness, and that you care for nothing but just what interests 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."