mself; no other person can ever convince him that he is in
the wrong. But this will affect himself; he will hate to serve under
such a man as Cecil; I know he will; because Cecil is just the type of
person that Christopher has always looked down upon, for Christopher is
a gentleman and Cecil is not. Perhaps when he finds out how inferior an
iron-master Cecil is to me, Christopher will wish that he had liked me
better and been kinder to me when he had a chance. I hope he will, and
that it will make him miserable; for those hard, self-righteous people
really deserve to be punished in the end." And Elisabeth derived so much
comfort from the prospect of Christopher's coming trials, that she
almost forgot her own.

CHAPTER XVII

GEORGE FARRINGDON'S SON

I need thee, Love, in peace and strife;
For, till Time's latest page be read,
No other smile could light my life
Instead.

And even in that happier place,
Where pain is past and sorrow dead,
I could not love an angel's face
Instead.

That night Elisabeth wrote to Christopher Thornley, telling him that she
believed she had found George Farringdon's son at last, and asking him
to come up to London in order to facilitate the giving up of her kingdom
into the hands of the rightful owner. And, in so doing, she was
conscious of a feeling of satisfaction that Christopher should see for
himself that she was not as mercenary as he had once imagined her to be,
but that she was as ready as he had ever been to enable the king to
enjoy his own again as soon as that king appeared upon the scene. To
forsake the reigning queen in order to search for that king, was, of
course, a different matter, and one about which Elisabeth declined to
see eye to eye with her manager even now. Doubtless he had been in the
right all through, and she in the wrong, as all honourable people could
see for themselves; but when one happens to be the queen one's self,
one's perspective is apt to become blurred and one's sense of abstract
justice confused. It is so easy for all of us to judge righteous
judgment concerning matters which in no way affect ourselves.

Elisabeth was still angry with Christopher because she had deliberately
made the worst of herself in his eyes. It was totally unjust--and
entirely feminine--to lay the blame of this on his shoulders; as a
matter of fact, he had had nothing at all to do with it. S