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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker, by
+Marguerite Bryant
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker
+
+
+Author: Marguerite Bryant
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 11, 2009  [eBook #28309]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER HIBBAULT, ROADMAKER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank, Darleen Dove, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER HIBBAULT, ROADMAKER
+
+by
+
+MARGUERITE BRYANT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers
+
+Copyright, 1908, by
+Duffield and Company
+
+Set up and electrotyped; published January, 1909
+Reprinted March, August, October, December, 1909
+May, August, October, 1910
+
+
+
+
+
+  _To V. B. and M. B.
+       this Book
+      with my love
+       1906-1908_
+
+
+                     _Your paths were two when
+                         first the tale began
+                     And now are one, and still
+                         with every year
+                     Love, the Divine Roadmaker,
+                         works His will.
+                     And of these paths he makes
+                         one perfect Road
+                     Which those who follow after
+                         shall find smooth
+                     And with more easy steps
+                         shall seek the Dawn._
+
+
+
+
+Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was a hot July day, set in a sky of unruffled blue, with sharp
+shadows across road and field, and a wind that had little coolness in
+it playing languidly over the downland. The long white dusty road kept
+its undeviating course eastward over hill and dale, through hamlet and
+town, till it was swallowed up in the mesh-work of ways round London,
+sixty-three miles away according to the mile-stone by which a certain
+small boy clad in workhouse garb was loitering. He had read the
+inscription many times and parcelled out the sixty-three miles into
+various days' journeys, but never succeeded in bringing it within
+divisionable distance of the few pennies which found their way into
+his pockets. His precocious little head carried within it too bitter
+memories of hungry days, and too many impressions of the shifts and
+contrivances by which fortune's votaries bamboozle from that fickle
+Goddess a meagre living, to adventure on the journey unprepared.
+Moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Moss of the Whitmansworth Union were not
+unkind, and meals were regular, so he did not run away from the house
+that had opened its doors to him and an exhausted mother six months
+ago. But he still dreamt of London as the desideratum of his fondest
+hopes, and that, in spite of a black terror crouching there and
+carefully nurtured by the poor mother in the days of their wanderings.
+He saw it all through a haze of people and experiences, of friends and
+foes, and it was the Place of Liberty.
+
+Therefore, when escape was possible from the somewhat easy rule of
+the Union, he hurried away to the mile-stone on the "Great Road," as
+it was called about here. The stone with its clear distinct black
+lettering, seemed to bring him nearer London, and he would spend his
+time contentedly flinging pebbles into the river of dust at his feet,
+or planning out in his active little mind what he would do when old
+Granny Jane's prophecy came true.
+
+There was a wide strip of turf on each side of the road bejewelled
+with poppies and daisies, matted with yellow and white bedstraws,
+carpeted with clovers, and over all lay a coating of fine chalky dust,
+legacy of passing cart and carriage.
+
+The boy was very hot and very dusty, and a little sleepy. He lay on
+his back drumming his heels on the turf and watching an exuberant lark
+tower up into the sky above him. He was not unmindful of the lark's
+song, but he vaguely wondered if a well-thrown stone could travel as
+far as the dark mounting speck.
+
+"It's a year ago I am sure since that old woman told me my fortune,"
+he said, suddenly sitting up. "I wonder if it will come true. Mother
+said it was nonsense."
+
+It was a lonely stretch of road. The mile-stone was on the summit of a
+rise and the ground sloped away on his right to a reach of green
+water-meadow through which a chalky trout-stream wandered, and the red
+roof of an old mill showed through a group of silvery poplars and
+willows. On the other side of the road were undulating fields that
+dwindled from sparse cultivation to bare down-land. There was no sign
+of any house except the distant mill, but directly over the summit of
+the hill, happily hidden, an ugly little red-brick mushroom of a town
+asserted itself, overgrowing in its unbeautiful growth the older
+picturesque village of Whitmansworth.
+
+The faint sharp click of horses' hoofs stepping swiftly and regularly
+swept up the road towards the boy. He stood up the better to see the
+approaching vehicle which was coming from out of the east towards him.
+Two horses, he judged, listening intently. Presently a distant dark
+spot on the road evolved itself into a carriage--a phaeton and a pair
+of iron grey horses. It was long before the days of motors, when fine
+horses and good drivers were common enough in England, but even the
+small boy recognised that these animals were exceptional and were
+stepping out at a pace that spoke of good blood, good training and
+good hands on the reins.
+
+He watched them trot full pace down the opposite hill and breast the
+steep rise after without a break in the easy rhythm of their
+movements. It was a matter of their driver's will rather than their
+pleasure that made them slacken pace as they neared the mile-stone.
+
+The lonely little figure standing there was clearly visible to the
+travellers in the phaeton. The man who was driving looked at him
+casually, looked again with sudden sharp scrutiny, and abruptly pulled
+up his horses. He thrust the reins into his companion's hands, and was
+off the box before the groom from behind could reach the horses'
+heads.
+
+The owner of the phaeton came straight towards the small boy who was
+watching the horses with interest, pleased at the halt and oblivious
+of his own connection with it. The traveller was a man who looked
+forty-eight despite his frosted hair, and was in reality ten years
+older. He was tall, well beyond average height, thin, well-fashioned,
+with a keen kindly face, clean shaven. His mouth was humorous, and
+there was a certain serenity of expression and bearing that invited
+confidence. The boy, casting a hasty glance at him as he approached,
+thought him a very fine gentleman indeed: as in fact he was, in every
+possible meaning of the word.
+
+"Is this Whitmansworth?" demanded the owner of the phaeton. His tone
+was not aggressive. The boy gave him as straight a look of judgment as
+he himself received.
+
+"Down there it is," with a nod of his head in the direction of the
+distant townlet.
+
+"And not up here?"
+
+"Dunno, they calls it the Great Road."
+
+The stranger still stood looking down at him fixedly.
+
+"Is your name James Christopher Hibbault?"
+
+Without warning, without time for the canny little morsel of humanity
+to weigh the wisdom of an answer, the question was shot at him and he
+was left gasping and speechless after an incriminating "Yes," forced
+from him by the suddenness of the onslaught, and the truth-compelling
+power of those keen eyes. "Least it's Hibbault," he added unwillingly.
+"Jim, they calls me."
+
+"I think it is Christopher as well, and I prefer Christopher. And what
+are you doing on the Great Road at this hour in the afternoon,
+Christopher?"
+
+And Jim--or Christopher,--trained and renowned for a useful
+evasiveness of retort in those far-off London days, answered
+mechanically: "Waiting for the fortune to come true."
+
+Then the hot blood rushed to his face from sheer shame at his own
+betrayal of the darling secret of his small existence.
+
+"Your fortune?" echoed the other slowly. "Fortunes do not come for
+waiting. What do you mean?"
+
+"It was the old woman said so--mother didn't believe it. She said as
+how my fortune would come to me on the Great Road. There wer'n't no
+Great Road there, so when I heard as how they called this the Great
+Road, I just stuck to it."
+
+It was a long speech. The boy had none of the half-stupid stolidity
+of the country-bred, and yet lacked something of the garrulity of the
+cute street lad. His voice too was a surprise. The broad vowels seemed
+acquired and uncertain and jarred on the hearer with a sense of
+misfit.
+
+"Do you live at Whitmansworth Union?"
+
+There was a faint tinge of resentment in the short "Yes."
+
+How did the gentleman know it, and, anyhow, why should he tell him?
+Jim felt irritated.
+
+The owner of the phaeton stood still a moment with one hand on the
+dusty little shoulder, and then looked round at the water-meadows, the
+distant copses, the more distant shimmering downs. Then he laughed,
+saying something the boy did not understand, and looked down at the
+sharp inquiring little face again.
+
+"Which means, Christopher, hide-and-seek is an easy game when it's
+over," he explained. "Come and show me where you live."
+
+They walked back towards the carriage together. The elderly gentleman
+holding the reins was looking back at them; so was the groom. The
+elderly gentleman cast a puzzled, inquiring glance from the boy to his
+companion as they came near.
+
+"Fortune meets us on the road-side, Stapleton," said the owner of the
+phaeton. "Let me introduce you to Christopher Hibbault. Get up,
+child."
+
+Get up? Mount that quietly magnificent carriage, ride behind those
+beautiful animals with their pawing feet and arched necks? The small
+boy stood still a moment to appreciate the greatness of the event.
+
+"Are you afraid, Christopher?"
+
+Resentment sprang to life. Yet it was almost well so transcendent a
+moment should have its pin prick of annoyance. With a "No" of
+ineffable scorn, Jim--or Christopher--the name was immaterial to
+him--clambered up into the high carriage and wedged himself between
+the elderly gentleman and the inquisitive driver, who had regained his
+seat and the reins.
+
+Christopher's experiences of driving were of a very limited nature,
+and certainly they did not embrace anything like this. He had no
+recollection of ever having travelled by train, and it was the
+question of pace that fascinated him, the rapid, easy swinging
+movement through the air, the fresh breeze rushing by, the distancing
+of humbler wayfarers, all gave him a strange sense of exhilaration.
+Years afterward, when flesh and blood were all too slow for him and he
+was one of the best motorists in England, if not in Europe, he used to
+recall the rapturous pleasure of that first drive of his, that first
+introduction to the mad, tense joy of speed that ever after held him
+in thrall.
+
+The owner of the phaeton and the elderly gentleman whom he had called
+Stapleton exchanged no remarks, but they both cast curious, thoughtful
+glances at their small companion from time to time. They had to rouse
+him from his rhapsody to ask the way at last. He answered concisely
+and shortly with no touch of the local burr.
+
+"How came you to be so far away?" demanded Jim's fine gentleman as
+they were passing through the market-place.
+
+Jim was engaged in superciliously ignoring the amazed stares of the
+town boys who were apt to look down on the "workhouse kid," though he
+attended the Whitmansworth school. Once past them he answered the
+question vaguely.
+
+"The master was out: I hadn't to do anything."
+
+"And you had permission to wander where you liked?"
+
+To this Jim did not reply. He had _not_ permission, but he counted on
+the good nature of Mrs. Moss, with whom he was a favourite, to plead
+his cause with her husband.
+
+"Had you permission?" demanded his questioner again, bending down
+suddenly to look in the boy's face with his disconcerting eyes.
+
+It would have seemed to Jim on reflection a great deal more prudent
+and quite as easy to have said "yes" as "no," but the "no" slipped
+out, and the questioner smiled, not ill-pleased.
+
+At last they came to a standstill before the door of the Whitmansworth
+Union. Jim, with a prodigious sigh, prepared to descend. The glorious
+adventure was over. Also he prepared to slip away to a more lowly
+entrance, but was stopped by a retaining hand.
+
+The porter, no friend of Jim's, stared with dull amazement at the
+apparition of the fine turn-out, and the still finer gentleman waiting
+on the doorstep with that little "varmint" of a Hibbault. He signed to
+the boy angrily to begone, as he ushered the visitor in.
+
+"The boy will stay with me," said the owner of the phaeton quietly,
+and they were accordingly shown into that solemn sanctum, the Board
+Room. It was a cheerful room with flowers in the window and a long
+green-covered table with comfortable chairs on each side, but it
+struck a cold note of discomfort in Jim's heart. The first time he had
+entered it, about six months ago, the chairs had been occupied by ten
+more or less portly gentlemen who informed him that his mother, now
+being dead (she had died two days previously), they had decided to
+give him a home for the present, and would educate him and teach him a
+trade, and that he should be very grateful and must be a good boy.
+
+Jim had said tearfully he would rather go back to London and Mrs.
+Sartin, which appeared to surprise them very much, and they were at
+some pains to point out the advantages of a country life, which did
+not appeal to him at all. Then one of them, who had not spoken
+before, said abruptly, "his mother had wished him to stay there, and
+there was an end of it."
+
+That was six months ago. Jim remembered it all very distinctly as he
+waited with his companion in the Board Room.
+
+Mr. Moss bustled in: he was a stout, cheerful man of hasty temper, but
+withal a man one could deal with--through his wife--in Jim's
+estimation.
+
+He held the card the visitor had sent in between his fingers and
+looked flurried and surprised. Jim noticed he bowed to the stranger,
+but did not offer to shake hands as he did with the doctor and parson
+and the few rare visitors the boy had observed. So Jim concluded _his_
+gentleman was a very great gentleman indeed, as he had all along
+suspected.
+
+"My name is Aston--Charles Aston"--said the owner of the phaeton in
+his pleasant voice. "I have driven down from London to make inquiries
+about a small boy I have reason to believe came under your care about
+seven months ago: Hibbault by name."
+
+"Yes, sir,--Mr. Aston," said Mr. Moss, assuming an air of importance,
+"and that is the boy himself."
+
+"A good boy, I hope?" He bestowed on him one of those keen, sharp
+glances Jim was beginning not to resent.
+
+"Not bad as boys go," Mr. Moss answered dubiously, scratching his
+chin, "but his bringing up has been against him. London, sir,--and
+then tramping about the country for a year."
+
+Jim regarded Mr. Aston anxiously to see how this somewhat negative
+character struck him, but he was still looking at Jim and seemed to
+pay small heed to Mr. Moss's words.
+
+"We passed him on the road," he said; "I was struck by the likeness to
+someone I knew, and I thought there could not be two boys so like in
+Whitmansworth. You were master here when he was admitted?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mr. Aston. It was in November last, on a Thursday night, I
+remember, because service was on. The mother was clean exhausted, and
+was taken to the infirmary at once and----"
+
+Mr. Aston interposed.
+
+"Christopher, go out and stay by the carriage till I call you, and ask
+the gentleman--Mr. Stapleton--to come in here."
+
+And James Christopher Hibbault obeyed without so much as a glance for
+permission at Mr. Moss.
+
+He delivered his message and then interviewed the groom, who seemed
+used to waiting. The tea bell rang, but Jim, though hungry, never
+thought of disobeying his orders. The hall porter came out and went
+off on his bicycle and presently returned with Mr. Page, one of the
+Board gentlemen.
+
+The groom eventually grew communicative and told Jim the horses' names
+were Castor and Pollux, and there wasn't their match in the country,
+no more in all London, though to be sure Mr. Aston had some fine
+horses at Marden Court.
+
+"Is that where he lives?" inquired Jim.
+
+It appeared he lived there sometimes, but Mr. Nevil,--Jim did not know
+who that was--lived there mostly. Mr. Aston spent most of his time in
+London with Mr. Aymer. They had left London the previous day, Jim
+learnt, and had been driving to queer out-of-the-way places, always
+stopping at Unions.
+
+At which point the door opened and Mr. Aston came out, and with him
+Mr. Page and Mr. and Mrs. Moss and Mr. Stapleton with a bundle of
+papers in his hand, and all these people looked at Jim in a perplexed
+way, except Mr. Aston, who appeared quite happy and unconcerned.
+
+"Say good-bye to Mrs. Moss, Christopher," he said authoritatively.
+"You are coming with me."
+
+"Where to?" demanded the boy with a sudden access of caution.
+
+"To London."
+
+Christopher began to scramble up into the carriage and was
+unceremoniously hauled down.
+
+"Manners, Christopher. Mrs. Moss is waiting to say good-bye."
+
+Now, Mrs. Moss had been very kind to the little waif and taken him to
+her motherly childless heart, and in spite of her excitement over this
+wonderful event, or because of it, she could not refrain from a few
+tears. Jim was not indifferent to the fact--any more than he had been
+to the lark's song, but he secretly thought it very inconsiderate of
+her to cloud this extraordinary adventure with anything so depressing
+as tears. He was the more aggrieved as against his will, against all
+reason and all tradition of manliness, he found objectionable salt
+drops brimming up in his own eyes. A culminating point was reached,
+however, when Mrs. Moss fairly embraced him. It should be stated that
+on occasions and in private Jim had no sort of objection to being
+cuddled by Mrs. Moss, who was a comfortable, pillowy sort of person.
+
+The ordeal was over at last and he was clambering up into the carriage
+when Mrs. Moss bethought her he had had no tea.
+
+Mr. Aston protested they were going to stop at Basingstoke, but the
+good woman insisted on provisioning the boy with a wedge of cake and
+tucking a clean handkerchief of her own into his pocket.
+
+"We shall sleep at Basingstoke, and I'll send back his clothes by
+post," said Mr. Aston. "No doubt we can get him some sort of temporary
+outfit there."
+
+Jim, who had been secretly afraid he would be relegated to the back
+seat with the groom, breathed a sigh of relief as Mr. Aston mounted to
+his place. That gentleman apparently understood the innermost soul of
+the boy, for he gravely asked Mr. Stapleton to find room for a
+companion, and then with a toss of their proud heads Castor and Pollux
+moved off. Mr. Aston raised his hat courteously to Mrs. Moss, and Jim,
+observing, made an attempt to remove his own dingy little cap, a
+performance everyone took as a matter of course untill he had gone,
+when Mrs. Moss remembered it and exclaimed to her husband: "Didn't I
+always say, Joseph, he wasn't like the rest of them?"
+
+But Joseph only said "Umph," and went in doors.
+
+"We will telegraph to Aymer from Basingstoke," said Mr. Aston as they
+started, and after that there was silence.
+
+The monotonous click-clack of the horses' feet lulled the tired child
+into blissful drowsiness. He had had too many ups and downs in his
+eleven years of life to be alarmed at this unexpected turn of fortune,
+and he was still too young to grasp how great a change had been
+wrought in that life since the hot hour he had spent lying by the
+mile-stone on the Great Road.
+
+As they clattered through the narrow streets of the country town in
+the light of the long July evening Christopher sat up and rubbed his
+eyes.
+
+"I've been here before," he volunteered.
+
+Mr. Aston effected a skilful pass between a donkey cart and two
+perambulators.
+
+"Yes, quite right, you have. What do you remember about it,
+Christopher?"
+
+The boy looked dubious and a little distressed, but just then they
+passed a chemist's shop.
+
+"We went there," he cried. "Mother got something for her cough, so she
+couldn't have any supper. We stayed at a horrid old woman's, a nasty,
+cross thing."
+
+"You did not go to the Union, then?"
+
+"No, we had some money, a whole shilling and some pennies."
+
+Mr. Aston said something under his breath and Mr. Stapleton murmured
+"tut-tut-tut."
+
+"That's how we first missed the trail, Stapleton," he said, and then
+as they walked up a steep hill he spoke to the boy.
+
+"Christopher, I want you to tell me anything you remember about your
+mother and the old days if you wish it, but you must not talk about
+that to Aymer. It would make him unhappy."
+
+"Who is Aymer?" asked Christopher, not unreasonably.
+
+"Aymer is my son, my eldest son. You are going to live with him."
+
+"Is he a boy like me?"
+
+"No, he is quite big, grown up, but he can't get about as you can, he
+is--a cripple."
+
+He said the words with a sort of forced jerk and half under his
+breath, but Christopher heard them and shivered.
+
+"Do you live there, too?" he asked, pressing a little nearer the man
+who was no longer a stranger.
+
+"Live where?"
+
+"With the--your son."
+
+"Yes, I live there too. My boy couldn't get on without me--and here's
+the White Elephant, which means supper and bed for a tired young man.
+Jump down, Christopher."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The spirit of waning July hung heavily over London. In mean streets
+and alleys it was inexpressibly dreary: the fagged inhabitants lacked
+even energy to quarrel.
+
+But on the high ground westward of the Park, where big houses demand
+elbow-room and breathing space and even occasionally exclusive
+gardens, a little breeze sprang up at sundown and lingered on till
+dusk.
+
+In this region lies one of the most beautiful houses in London, the
+country seat of some fine gentleman in Queen Anne's day. It hid its
+beauties, however, from the public gaze, lying modestly back in a
+garden whose size had no claim to modesty at all. All one could see
+from the road, through the iron gates, was a glimpse of a wide
+portico, and a long row of windows. It stood high and in its ample
+garden the breeze ran riot, shaking the scent from orange and myrtle
+trees, from jasmine and roses, and wafting it in at the wide open
+windows of a room which, projecting from the house, seemed to take
+command of the garden.
+
+It was a large room and the windows went from ceiling to floor. It was
+also a very beautiful room. In the gathering dusk the restful
+harmonies of its colours melted into soft, hazy blue, making it appear
+vaster than it really was. Also, it was unencumbered by much furniture
+and what there was so essentially fitted its place that it was
+unobtrusive. Three big canvases occupied the walls, indiscernible in
+the dim light, but masterpieces of world fame, heirlooms known all
+over Europe. There was a curious dearth of small objects and
+unessentials, nothing in all the great space that could fatigue the
+eye or perplex the brain of the occupant.
+
+The owner of the room was lying on a big sofa near one of the open
+windows. Within reach was a low bookcase, a table with an electric
+reading lamp, and a little row of electric bells, some scattered
+papers and an open telegram.
+
+The man on the sofa lay quite still looking into the garden as it sunk
+from sight under the slowly falling veil of purple night.
+
+He was evidently a tall man, with the head and shoulders of an
+athlete, and a face of such precise and unusual beauty that one's
+instinct called out, "Here, then, God has planned a man."
+
+Aymer Aston, indeed, was not unlike his father, but far more regular
+in feature, more carefully hewn, and the serenity of the older face
+was lacking. Here was the face of a fighter, alive with the strong
+passions held in by a stronger will. There was almost riotous vitality
+expressed in his colouring, coppery-coloured hair and dark brows, eyes
+of surprising blueness and a tanned skin, for he spent hours lying in
+the sun, hatless and unshaded, with the avowed intention of
+"browning"; and he "browned" well except for a queer white triangled
+scar almost in the centre of his forehead, an ugly mark that showed up
+with fresh distinctness when any emotion brought the quick blood to
+his face. There was indeed nothing in his appearance to suggest a
+cripple or an invalid.
+
+Nevertheless, Aymer Aston, aged thirty-five, the best polo-player, the
+best fencer, the best athlete of his day at College, possessing more
+than his share of the vigour of youth and glory of life, had, for over
+ten years, never moved without help from the sofa on which he lay, and
+the strange scar and a certain weakness in the left hand and arm were
+the only visible signs of the catastrophe that had broken his life.
+
+A thin, angular man entered, and crossed the room with an apologetic
+cough.
+
+"Is that you, Vespasian?" demanded his master without moving. "Have
+they come?"
+
+"No, sir, but there is a message from the House. I believe Mr. Aston
+is wanted particularly."
+
+"What a nuisance. Why can't they let him alone? He might as well be in
+office."
+
+The man, without asking permission, rearranged his master's cushions
+with a practised hand.
+
+"The young gentleman had better have some supper upstairs, sir, as
+it's so late," he suggested. "I'll see to it myself."
+
+"Send him in to me directly they come, Vespasian."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He withdrew as quietly as he had entered and Aymer continued to look
+out at the dark, and think over the change he, of his own will, was
+about to make in his monotonous existence. He was so lost in thought
+he did not hear the door open again or realise the "change" was
+actually an accomplished fact till a half-frightened gasp of "Oh!"
+caught his ear. He turned as well as he could, unaided.
+
+"Is that you, Christopher?"
+
+The voice was so singularly like Mr. Aston's that Christopher felt
+reassured. The dim vastness of the room had frightened him, also he
+had thought it empty.
+
+"Come over here to me," said Aymer, holding out his hand, "I can't
+come to you."
+
+Christopher nervously advanced. The brightness of the corridor outside
+left his eyes confused in this dim light. Aymer suddenly remembered
+this and turned on a switch. The vague shadowy space was flooded with
+soft radiance. It was like magic to the small boy.
+
+He was first aware of a gorgeous glint of colouring in a rug flung
+across the sofa, and then of a man lying on a pile of dull-tinted
+pillows, a man with red hair and blue eyes, watching him eagerly.
+
+Children as a rule are not susceptible to physical beauty, turning
+with undeviating instinct to the inner soul of things, with a fine
+disregard for externals, but Christopher, in this, was rather
+abnormal. He was very actively alive to outward form.
+
+Since Mr. Aston had told him Aymer was a cripple Christopher had been
+consumed with unspeakable dread. His idea of a cripple was derived
+from a distorted, evil-faced old man who had lived in the same house
+that had once sheltered his mother and him. The mere thought of it
+made him sick with horror. And when the tall gentleman in black, who
+had met them in the entrance hall and escorted him here, had opened
+the door and put him inside, he had much ado not to rush out again. He
+conquered his fear with unrecognised heroism, and this was his
+reward.
+
+He stood staring, with all his worshipful admiration writ large on his
+little tired white face. Aymer Aston saw it and laughed. He was quite
+aware of his own good looks and perfectly unaffected thereby, though
+he took some pains to preserve them. But his vanity had centred itself
+on one thing in his earlier life, and that, his great strength, and it
+died when that was no more.
+
+"Little Christopher," he said, "come and sit down by me: you must be
+tired to death."
+
+"Are you Mr. Aymer?" demanded Christopher, still staring.
+
+"Yes, only you mustn't call me that, I think. I wonder what you will
+call me?"
+
+Christopher offered no solution to the problem.
+
+"Would you like to live here with me?"
+
+He looked round. A dim sense of alarm crept back. The room looked so
+empty and unreal, so "alone." Without knowing why, Christopher, who
+had never had a real home to pine for, felt miserably homesick.
+
+Aymer watched him closely and did not press the question. Instead, he
+asked him in a matter-of-fact way to shut the window for him.
+
+The boy did so without blundering. The window-fastening was new to
+him, and Aymer noticed he looked at it curiously and shut it twice to
+see how it went. Then he sat down again and continued to gaze at
+Aymer.
+
+"I forgot, I was to tell you something," he said suddenly, his face
+wrinkling with distress. "The other one--the gentleman who brought
+me----"
+
+"My father?"
+
+Christopher nodded. "I oughtn't to have forgotten. He said he had to
+go to the House, but he'd be back quite soon, he hoped."
+
+"He's had no dinner, I suppose," grumbled Aymer.
+
+"Yes, we had dinner at--I forget the name of the place--and tea. And
+yesterday we had dinner too."
+
+"That was wise," said Aymer gravely. "Where's Mr. Stapleton?"
+
+"He went home by train this morning. I sat in his place all the time,
+not at the back."
+
+He paused thoughtfully. An idea that had been dimly forming in his
+brain, took alarming shape. A small companion at the Union had lately
+been sent out as a page to a kindly family. Christopher wondered if
+that was the meaning of all these strange adventures for him. At the
+same time he was conscious of so vast a sense of disappointment that
+he was compelled to put his Fate to the test at once. He jerked out
+the inquiry with breathless abruptness.
+
+"Am I going to be your page?"
+
+"Page?" Aymer Aston echoed the words with consternation; then held out
+his hand to the child.
+
+"Didn't my father tell you?" he asked.
+
+A kind of nervous exasperation seized on Christopher. He was tired,
+overwrought, puzzled and baffled.
+
+"No one tells me anything," he said petulantly, blinking hard to keep
+back the tears; "they just took me."
+
+"Do you want to be a page boy?"
+
+"No." It was emphatic to the point of rudeness.
+
+Aymer put his arm round him and drew him near, laughing.
+
+"You are not going to be a page," he said, "you are going to be"--he
+hesitated--"to be my own boy--just as if you were my son. I've adopted
+you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Christopher's dark eyes were fixed on the blue ones and then he saw
+the scar for the first time. It interested him so much he hardly heard
+Aymer's slow answer when it came.
+
+"I have a great deal of time on my hands, and I should have liked a
+son of my own. As I can't have that I've adopted you. Don't you think
+you can like me?"
+
+Christopher looked round the room and back at the sofa. The voice was
+kind and the arm that was round him gripped him firmly; also, Mr.
+Aston had said he lived here too. That was reassuring. He was not
+quite certain how he felt towards this strangely fascinating man, but
+he was quite sure of his sentiments towards Mr. Aston.
+
+"Mr. Aston lives here, doesn't he?"
+
+"Yes; do you like him best?"
+
+"I like him very much," said Christopher truthfully, and added
+considerately, "You see, I've known him longer, haven't I?"
+
+"You must like me too."
+
+Christopher was too young to read the passionate hunger in the voice
+and the look. It was gone in a moment.
+
+Aymer released him, laughing.
+
+"Is there anyone else?" asked the boy, looking vaguely round.
+
+"Anyone else living here? Only the servants."
+
+"I don't mean that." A puzzled look came into his face. "I mean--there
+was Mrs. Moss and Grannie Jane, and Mrs. Sartin and Jessy and mother."
+Then he recollected Mr. Aston's prohibition and got red and
+embarrassed.
+
+"You mean--a woman," said Aymer in a strangely quiet voice.
+
+Christopher noticed the scar again, clear and distinct. Aymer took out
+a cigarette and lit it carefully. Christopher watched dumbly. He
+wanted to cry: for no reason that he could discover. Presently Aymer
+turned to him as he sat on a low chair by the side of the wide sofa
+and put his arm round him again.
+
+"I'm sorry, little Christopher," he said rather huskily, perhaps
+because he was smoking, "but I'm afraid I can't give you that, old
+chap. We only--remember them here."
+
+The tired child yielded to the slight pressure of the arm--his head
+dropped against his new friend--the room was very quiet--only Mr.
+Aymer must have been mistaken. It seemed to Christopher a thin
+black-clad woman was in the room--somewhere--she was looking at Aymer
+and would not see him at first--then she turned her head--he called
+"Mother," and opened his eyes to find Mr. Aymer bending over him.
+
+When Mr. Aston had returned and found Aymer smoking composedly with
+one arm round the sleeping boy, he had pointed out with great care the
+enormity of a small child being out of bed at eleven o'clock.
+
+Aymer put down his cigarette and looked at his charge.
+
+"Vespasian did come for him," he confessed; "I thought it a pity to
+wake him till you came. It's just as I feared," he added with assumed
+pathos, "you have had first innings and I shall have to take a second
+place."
+
+"It's only just that he got used to me: I hardly talked to him at
+all," pleaded Mr. Aston humbly, and Aymer laughed. Whereupon
+Christopher woke up, rubbing his eyes, and smiled sleepily at Mr.
+Aston.
+
+"I gave him the message, not just at once, but almost."
+
+His first friend sat down and drew him to his knee.
+
+"Well, what do you think of my big boy?" asked Mr. Aston. "I've been
+scolding him for not sending you to bed."
+
+Christopher looked from one to the other with solemn eyes, blinking in
+the light.
+
+"Scolding him? Isn't he too big to be scolded?"
+
+The men laughed and involuntarily glanced at each other in a curiously
+conscious manner.
+
+"He does not think anyone too big to scold," sighed Aymer resignedly.
+"Father, about the name: I'd rather tell him to-night." His voice was
+a little hurried. Mr. Aston glanced at him questioningly.
+
+"As you like, Aymer--if he's not too sleepy to listen. Are you,
+Christopher?"
+
+"I'm not tired," answered Christopher, valiantly blinking sleep out of
+his eyes.
+
+It was Aymer who spoke, slowly and directly. Mr. Aston kept his eyes
+on the boy and tried not to see his son.
+
+"What is your real name, Christopher, do you know?"
+
+"James Christopher Hibbault, but they calls me Jim, except him."
+
+In his sleepiness and agitation the boy had dropped back into country
+dialect. Aymer winced.
+
+"That is the only name you know? Well, Christopher, it's a good name,
+but all the same I want you to forget it at present. I want you to
+call yourself always, Christopher Aston. Do you think you can
+remember?"
+
+The newly-named one stood silent, puzzling out something in his mind.
+
+"Will it make me not belong to mother?" he said at last.
+
+There was a faint movement on the sofa. It was Mr. Aston who answered,
+putting his hand gently on the boy's head.
+
+"No, little Christopher, nothing will make you cease to belong to her;
+we do not wish that. But it will be more easy for you to have our
+name. We want Christopher Aston to have a better time than poor little
+Jim Hibbault. Only, Christopher, remember Aston is my name, and I am
+only lending it to you, and you must take very great care of it."
+
+"Isn't it his name too?" The child edged a little nearer his friend,
+and looked at Aymer.
+
+"Yes, it's Aymer's name too. And, Christopher, if we were both to give
+you everything we possess we could not give you anything we value more
+than the name we lend you, so you must be very good to it. Now, Aymer,
+I insist on your ringing for Vespasian: the child should have been in
+bed hours ago. I must really buy you a book of nursery rules."
+
+Vespasian was apparently of the same mind as Mr. Aston. Disapproval
+was plainly expressed on his usually impassive face when he entered.
+
+"Is that Vespasian?" demanded Christopher.
+
+"Yes, and you will have to do just what he tells you, Christopher,
+just as I have to," said Aymer severely.
+
+Christopher regarded him doubtfully: he was not quite sure if he were
+serious or not. He did not look as if people would tell him to do
+things, yet the grave man in black did not smile.
+
+"It's a funny name," he said at last, not meaning to be rude.
+
+"Vespasian was a great general," remarked Aymer, and then added
+hastily, seeing the boy's bewilderment increased, "Not this one, the
+General's dead, but this is a good second."
+
+"Aymer, you are incorrigible," expostulated Mr. Aston. "Good-night,
+little Christopher."
+
+He kissed him and Christopher's eyes grew large with wonder. He did
+not know men did kiss little boys, and he ventured slyly to rub his
+cheek against the black sleeve.
+
+"Good-night, Christopher." Aymer held out his hand, and then suddenly,
+half shyly, and half ashamed, kissed him also, and Vespasian bore him
+off to bed.
+
+The two men sat silently smoking, avoiding for the moment the subject
+nearest their hearts, Aymer, because he was fighting hard to get some
+mastering emotion under control, and he loathed showing his feelings
+even to his father; Mr. Aston, because he was aware of this and wanted
+Aymer to have time.
+
+All that day he had been secretly dreading to-night, shrinking like a
+coward from a situation which must arouse in his son memories better
+forgotten. He was not a man given to shirking unpleasing experiences
+to save his own heart a pang, but he was a veritable child in the way
+that he studied to preserve his eldest son from the like.
+
+It was Aymer who first spoke in his usual matter-of-fact tone.
+
+"Had you any difficulties?"
+
+"None whatever," answered his father, crossing his legs and preparing
+to be communicative. "Stapleton had been all over the ground before
+and knew every point. We went first to Surbiton Workhouse, since she
+told Felton she stayed there. They found the entry for us. Then we
+went on to Hartley, which is quite a small village and off the main
+road. We stayed the night there, and went to the cottage where Felton
+had seen her. It was quite true, all he said. The old woman remembered
+distinctly a tramp-looking man stopping and calling to her over the
+gate. They sat in the garden and talked together for some time. She
+and the boy had been there a month, but they went the day after
+Felton's visit--seemed frightened, the old lady said. Apparently they
+meant to go to Southampton, for she had asked the way there.
+Basingstoke must have been the next stop, but we did not know where
+until the boy told us. They were in funds, so did not go to the House.
+We got to Whitmansworth the next afternoon. Then a strange thing
+happened, one of those chance coincidences that put to rout all our
+schemes. There is a hill going into Whitmansworth with a milestone on
+the top. I drove slowly, as I wanted to see if it really were the
+place, and by the stone was a small boy. The likeness was so absurd
+that it might have been ..." he stopped abruptly and examined his
+cigar, "had I not been seeking him I should have seen it. I found out
+his name, and that I was right, and took him up and drove to the
+Union. They raised no objections--it was only a matter of form. The
+master and his wife seem to be good people, and to have been kind to
+the boy."
+
+He came to a pause again. Aymer still waited. Mr. Aston walked to the
+window and looked out at the night, and then went on without turning:
+
+"She had never left the slightest clue or given any hint whatever as
+to her identity. She was going to Southampton, she said. But she was
+dying of exhaustion then. They could do nothing for her. She asked
+them to keep the boy. The Mosses took a fancy to him, and it was
+managed. She would not say where she came from."
+
+Aymer lay very still, his face set and immovable.
+
+"The strength of her purpose: think of it, in a woman!" said Mr. Aston
+a little unsteadily; "the boy should have grit in him, Aymer."
+
+"What did they say of the boy?"
+
+"Ah." Mr. Aston resumed his seat with a sigh.
+
+"Well, what's your own impression, Aymer?"
+
+"I am satisfied."
+
+Mr. Aston leant forward with a wealth of affection in his kind eyes,
+and straightened the edge of the gorgeous sofa cover. "Aymer, old
+chap, you are too sensible, I know, to imagine it is going to run
+easily and smoothly from the first. The boy will come out all right:
+he is young enough to shape, and worth shaping. But he has had
+everything against him except one thing. It means many troubles and
+disappointments for you, but I believe it will have its compensations.
+It will help fill your life, at least."
+
+"I understand," said Aymer, steadily. "I should like to tell you just
+how I feel about it, father. Putting aside entirely the question of it
+being--Christopher--. That was a stroke of Providence, shall we say? I
+had you and Nevil, and the children. Life was not altogether empty,
+sir. But I felt I had learnt something from life,--from
+myself,--mostly from you,--that might be useful to a man. Not to pass
+this on," the steady voice lost its main quality for a moment, "seemed
+a waste. I told you all this when I first spoke of adopting someone;
+and at that precise moment the clue which led us to Christopher was
+put into our hands. There was no choice then. I say this again because
+I want you to remember that the idea that first started my plan is
+still the main one. Christopher, being Christopher, does not alter it.
+There is only this thing certain," he raised himself a very little on
+his right arm and laid down his cigarette deliberately, "I've taken
+the boy and I mean to do my best by him, but he is mine now. If the
+fate that--she died to save him from--comes to him, it must come. I
+will not stand in his way, but I will have no hand in bringing it to
+pass, I will raise no finger to summon it, nor will I call him from
+it, if it come. Until, and unless it comes, he is mine. I think even
+she would let me have him on those conditions." He lay back again, his
+flushed face still witnessing to the force of his feeling.
+
+"On any conditions," said his father, "if she knew you now. Only you
+must bear the chance in mind in dealing with him. And it's only fair
+to tell you the Union Master's report on him."
+
+"Let's have it."
+
+"Fairly docile, but inclined to argue the point. Truthful,--I
+discovered that myself--but either through lack of training
+or--according to the Master--through bad training in London, he is--"
+Mr. Aston stumbled over a word, half laughed, and then said, "well, he
+has a habit of acquisitiveness, shall we call it? When you think of
+her history it seems at once natural and strange. They had not known
+him to actually take things--money, that is,--but if he found any--and
+he appears to have luck in finding things--he was not particular to
+discover the real owner. It may be a difficulty, Aymer."
+
+"Hereditary instinct," said Aymer a little shortly.
+
+"Well, my own theory is that acquisitiveness is generosity inverted,"
+concluded Mr. Aston thoughtfully, "and that heredity is merely a
+danger signal, though it may mean fighting. I believe you can do it,
+my dear boy, but it is a big job."
+
+"I hope so, I was a born fighter, you know."
+
+"You have not done badly that way, son Aymer," returned his father
+quietly.
+
+"You mean you have not. You are very gracious to a vanquished man,
+sir."
+
+It was one of his rare confessions of his indebtedness to his father,
+and perhaps Mr. Aston was more embarrassed at receiving it than Aymer
+in confessing it. For the indebtedness was undeniable. The Aymer Aston
+of the present day was not the Aymer Aston of the first bitter years
+of his imprisonment. The fight had been a long one: but whether the
+love, the patience, the forbearance of the elder man had regenerated
+the fierce nature, or whether he had only assisted the true Aymer to
+work out his own salvation was an open question. Certainly those dark
+years had left their mark on Mr. Aston, but, for a certainty they were
+honourable scars, and he, the richer for his spent strength. He had
+sacrificed much for him, but the reward reaped for his devotion was
+the knowledge that of their friendship was woven a curtain of infinite
+beauty that helped to shut away the tragedy of Aymer's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The question that chiefly occupied Mr. Aston's mind during the first
+days of Christopher's advent was whether Aymer had gathered in those
+ten long years of captivity sufficient strength of purpose to set
+aside once and for all the sharp emotions and memories the boy's
+presence must inevitably awake.
+
+When Aymer had first approached him on the subject of adopting a boy
+he had consented willingly enough, but when, coincident with this,
+Fate--or Providence--had pointed out to them the person of Christopher
+Hibbault, he, Mr. Aston, though he agreed it was impossible to
+disregard the amazing chance, had sighed to himself and trembled lest
+the carefully erected edifice of control and endurance that hedged in
+his son should be unequal to the strain.
+
+But after the first evening Aymer Aston betrayed by no sign whatever
+that the past had any power to harm him through the medium of little
+Christopher, and his father grew daily more satisfied and content over
+the wisdom of their joint action. They stayed in town all that summer.
+Mr. Aston was acting as Secretary to a rather important Commission and
+even when it was not sitting he was employed in gathering in
+information which could only be obtained in London. Nothing would
+induce Aymer to go away without his father. He hated the publicity of
+a railway journey even after ten years of helplessness, and the long
+drive to Marden Court could not be undertaken lightly. So they stayed
+where they were, a proceeding which seemed less strange to Christopher
+than to such part of the outside world who chose to interest itself in
+Mr. Aston's doings.
+
+The August sun dealt gently with the beautiful garden, and not a few
+hardworking men, tied, like Mr. Aston, to town, congratulated
+themselves on his presence, when they shared its restful beauty in the
+hot summer evenings.
+
+Christopher meanwhile adapted himself to his new life with amazing
+ease. He accepted his surroundings without question, but with quiet
+appreciation, and if certain customs, such as a perpetual changing of
+clothes and washing of hands were irksome, he took the good with the
+bad, and accommodated himself to the ways of his new friends
+resignedly. But he was haunted with the idea that the present state of
+things would not and could not last, and it was hardly worth while to
+do more than superficially conform to the regulations of the somewhat
+monotonous existence.
+
+Most of the ten years of his life had been spent under the dominant
+influence of a devoted woman. All that he had learnt from mankind had
+been a cunning dishonesty that had nearly ruined his own small
+existence and indirectly caused his mother's death. Women, indeed, had
+always been near him, and there were times when he thought regretfully
+of Mrs. Moss. There were none but menservants at Aston house, and the
+only glimpse of femininity was afforded by the flying visits of
+Constantia, Mr. Aston's married daughter. She would at times invade
+Aymer's room, a vision of delicate colourings and marvellous gowns.
+She was a tall, dark, lovely woman who carried on the traditional
+family beauty with no poverty of detail. She seemed to Christopher to
+be ever going on somewhere or returning from somewhere. He liked to
+sit and watch her when she flashed into the quiet room, and spent
+perhaps half an hour making her brother laugh with her witty accounts
+of people and matters strange to Christopher. She was kind to the boy,
+when she remembered him, lavish with her smiles and nonsense and
+presents, but it was like entertaining a rainbow, an elusive, shadowy
+thing of beauty. She could not be said to denote the Woman in the
+House. Christopher, as he wandered about the big silent rooms and long
+corridors, was perforce obliged to take with him for company a more
+shadowy presence, an imaginary vision of another woman, also tall and
+dark, but without Constantia Wyatt's irresponsible gaiety and dazzling
+smile. He would escort this phantom Woman through his favourite rooms,
+pointing out the treasures to her. He even apportioned her a room for
+herself, behind a closed door at the end of the wing opposite to which
+Aymer Aston lived. For it was here he had first discovered with what
+ease the image of his dead mother fitted into the surroundings he had
+never shared with her. It was rather an uncanny, eerie idea, and had
+Christopher been at all morbid or of a dreamy disposition it might
+have been a very injudicious fancy: but he was the personification of
+good health and robust spirits. His vivid imagination flitted as
+naturally and easily round the memory of his dead mother as it
+rejoiced in the adventures of the Robinson family, or thrilled over
+the history of John Silver. It was just a deliberate fancy that he
+indulged in at will, and the only really fantastical thing about it
+was that he invariably started his tour with the imaginary Woman from
+the door of the closed room. At the end of October, when he had fairly
+settled into the regular routine of Aston House, a tutor was procured
+for him. School, for more reasons than one, was out of the question.
+Christopher's previous existence would hardly have stood the
+inquisition of the playground, and Aymer, moreover, wanted to keep him
+under his own eye. The boy's education had been of a somewhat
+desultory nature. He could read and write, and possessed a curious
+store of out-of-the-way knowledge that would upset the most carefully
+prepared plan of his puzzled tutor. That poor gentleman was
+alternately scandalised by the boy's ignorance and amazed at his
+appetite for knowledge. He showed an astonishing aptitude for figures
+while he evinced a shameful contempt for history and languages.
+Indeed, he could only be made to struggle with Latin Grammar by
+Aymer's stories of Roman heroes in the evening and the ultimate reward
+of reading them for himself some day.
+
+The year wore on, ran out, with the glories of pantomime and various
+holiday joys with Mr. Aston. Christopher by this time had accepted his
+surroundings as permanent, with regard to Mr. Aston and Aymer, though
+he still, in his heart of hearts, had no belief that so far as he was
+concerned they might not any day vanish away and leave him again prey
+to a world of privations, wants and disagreeables generally.
+
+He was forever trying to make provision against that possible day, and
+laid up a secret hoard of treasure he deemed might be useful on
+emergency. With the same idea he made really valiant attempts to put
+aside a portion of his ample pocket-money for the same purpose, but it
+generally dwindled to an inconsiderable sum by Saturday. Aymer kept
+him well supplied and encouraged him to spend freely. He was told
+again and again the money was given him to spend and not to keep, and
+that the day of need would not come to him. He would listen half
+convinced, until the vision of some street arabs racing for pennies
+would remind him of positive facts that had been and therefore might
+be again, and cold prudence had her say. But this trait was the result
+of experience and not of nature, for he was generous enough. Not
+infrequently the whole treasury went to the relief of already existing
+needs outside the garden railings, and he could be wildly extravagant.
+Aymer never questioned him. He sometimes laughed at him when he had
+wasted a whole week's money on some childish folly, and told him he
+was a silly baby, which Christopher did not like. However, he found he
+had to buy his own experiences, and he soon learnt that no folly
+however childish annoyed "Caesar" so much as accumulated wealth for no
+particular object but a possible future need.
+
+Christopher had christened Aymer "Caesar" shortly after his
+introduction to the literary remains of one, Julius, from some
+fanciful resemblance, and the name stuck and solved a difficulty.
+
+In the same manner he bestowed the distinctive title of St. Michael on
+Mr. Aston, from his likeness to a famous picture of that great saint
+in a stained glass window he had seen, and it also was generally
+adopted.
+
+No one made any further attempt to explain his introduction into the
+family, or the general history of that family. He was just "grafted
+in," and left to discover what he could for himself, and he certainly
+gathered some fragmentary disconnected facts together.
+
+"What is a Secletary?" demanded Christopher one day from the
+hearth-rug, where he lay turning over old volumes of the _Illustrated
+London News_.
+
+"A Secretary, I suppose you mean. A Secretary is a man who writes
+letters for someone else."
+
+"Who does St. Michael write letters for?"
+
+"He used to write letters for the Queen, or rather on the Queen's
+business. What book have you got there?"
+
+Christopher explained.
+
+"There is a picture of him. Only he hasn't got grey hair: and
+underneath Perma n-e-n-t, Permanent Undersecretary of State for
+Foreign Affairs. What does it mean, Caesar?"
+
+Caesar, otherwise Aymer, considered a moment.
+
+"Permanent means lasting, going on. You ought to know that,
+Christopher."
+
+"But he isn't going on."
+
+"He could have done so."
+
+"Why didn't he? Didn't he like it?"
+
+"Yes, very much. He was trained for that kind of thing."
+
+"Did he get tired of writing letters, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+Aymer was apt to become monosyllabic when a certain train of thought
+was forced on him. Also a short deep line of frown appeared under the
+white scar: but Christopher had not yet learnt to pay full heed to
+these signs: also he had a predilection for getting at the root of any
+matter he had once begun to investigate, so he began again:
+
+"Why didn't he go on being permanent, then?"
+
+"He thought he had something else he ought to do."
+
+"Was the Queen angry?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+Aymer cut the leaves of the book he was trying to read rather
+viciously.
+
+"Taking care of me," he said shortly.
+
+Christopher got up on his knees and stared.
+
+"Hadn't you got Vespasian then?"
+
+"Good heavens, Christopher, are you a walking inquisition? My father
+gave up his appointment--if you must know, because of my----" he
+stopped, and went on doggedly, "of my accident. I wasn't particularly
+happy when I found I had to stay on a sofa all the rest of my life,
+and he had to teach me not to make an idiot of myself. Now you know
+all about it and need not bother anyone else with questions."
+
+Christopher thought he knew very little about it, but he had learnt
+what he set out to know and was moreover now aware that the subject
+was distasteful to Aymer, so he politely changed it. "Robert's
+brother has got some very nice guinea-pigs," he said thoughtfully.
+
+"Who is Robert?"
+
+"Robert is the under footman. I forgot you don't know him."
+
+Christopher recollected with momentary embarrassment Aymer's
+inaccessibility to the general domestic staff.
+
+"He wants to find a home for them," he added hastily; "he doesn't mind
+where, so long as it's a happy home."
+
+Aymer guarded a smile. Christopher was already notorious for ingenious
+methods of getting what he wanted.
+
+"It would be a pity for them to be ill-treated, of course," he agreed
+gravely.
+
+Christopher shuffled across the floor to the side of the big sofa.
+
+"It's rather a happy home here, you know," he remarked suggestively,
+touching Aymer's arm tentatively with one finger.
+
+"I am glad you think so. Do you consider the atmosphere equally
+suitable for guinea-pigs?"
+
+"I should like them." He rubbed his cheek caressingly on Aymer's hand.
+"May I, Caesar?"
+
+"Not to keep in your bedroom as you did the bantam."
+
+"But in the garden--or yard. _Please_, dear Caesar."
+
+"You ridiculous baby, yes. If you make a house for them yourself."
+
+Christopher flew off in a transport of joy to consult with Vespasian,
+who, from mere tolerance of his beloved master's last "fad," had
+become the most ardent if unemotional partisan of the same "fad."
+
+It was Vespasian who had provided Christopher with more clothes than
+he deemed it possible for one mortal boy to wear, who taught him how
+to put them on, and struggled with him figuratively and literally over
+the collar question. Vespasian's taste running to a wide margin of
+immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a
+predilection for a free and open expanse of neck.
+
+"Look at Mr. Aymer," pointed out the great general's successor
+sternly. "You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying
+on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own
+comfort."
+
+Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had
+insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if Caesar
+really preferred it.
+
+But in spite of small differences of opinion, Vespasian and he were
+good friends, and he received much instruction from the mouth of that
+inestimable man. It was he who drilled him in Mr. Aymer's little ways,
+warned him how he hated to be reminded of his helplessness, and could
+not endure anyone but Vespasian himself to move him from sofa to
+chair, and that only in the strictest privacy. How he disliked meeting
+anyone when wheeled from his own room to the dining-room for dinner,
+which was the only meal he took in public, and that only in company
+with his father or very intimate friends. How he avoided asking anyone
+to hand him things though he did not object to unsolicited help, which
+Christopher soon learnt to render as unostentatiously as Vespasian
+himself. Also it was Vespasian who explained to him woodenly, in
+answer to his direct question, that the scar on Mr. Aymer's forehead
+was the result of a shooting accident. His revolver had gone off as he
+was cleaning it, said Vespasian, had nearly killed him, had left him
+paralysed on one side, so he'd never be better. He added, Mr. Aymer
+didn't like it talked about. All this and more did the boy learn from
+this discreet man, but never did Vespasian hint at those dark years
+when to serve poor Aymer Aston was a work for which no money could
+pay, when the patient father and much-tried man had secretly wondered
+whether that fight for mere life that had followed on the ghastly
+accident had indeed been worth the winning. There was no word of this
+in Vespasian's revelations. He only impressed on Christopher the
+necessity of avoiding any expression of pity or commiseration with the
+paralysed man, and a warning that a somewhat casual manner towards the
+world, and his entirely undemonstrative way, was no true index of Mr.
+Aymer's real feelings.
+
+Christopher was himself warm-hearted and given to expressing his
+joyous feelings with engaging frankness. It could hardly have been
+otherwise, brought up as he had been by a woman of ardent nature and
+passionate love for him, but in contradiction to this he had learnt to
+be very silent over the disagreeables of life and to keep his own
+small troubles to himself, so that he readily entered into Aymer's
+attitude towards his own misfortune, and the relationship between the
+two passed from admiration on Christopher's part to passionate
+devotion, and from the region of experimental interest on Aymer's part
+to personal uncalculated affection, and to an easing of a sharp
+heartache he had tried valiantly to hide from his father. Aymer never
+questioned him on the past, never even alluded to it. Partly because
+he hoped the memory of it would dwindle from the boy's mind, and
+partly for his own sake. But Christopher did not forget. There were
+few days when he did not contrast the old times with the new, and gaze
+for a moment across the big gulf that separated Christopher Aston from
+little Jim Hibbault and the quiet woman absorbed in a struggle for
+existence in an unfriendly world. He occasionally spoke of his mother
+to Mr. Aston when they were out together, but he kept his implied
+promise faithfully with regard to Aymer and made no mention of his
+former experiences, or of his mother, until one day an event occurred
+which recalled the black terror under whose shadow they had left
+London, and necessitated an elucidation of knotty points.
+
+There was in one corner of the garden far away from the house a gap in
+the high belt of shrubs that jealously guarded the grounds from the
+curious passerby. In fact the gap had once meant a gateway, but it had
+been disused so long that it had forgotten it was a gate and merely
+pretended it was part of the big railings; only it had not got a
+little wall to stand on. Christopher was fond of viewing life from
+this sequestered corner. The road that ran by was a main
+thoroughfare--an ever-varying picture of moving shapes. One morning as
+he stood there counting the omnibuses--he had nearly made a record
+count--his attention was attracted by a small boy about his own age or
+possibly older, who was dawdling along, hands in pockets, with a
+dejected air. He appeared to be whistling, but if he were, without
+doubt it was also a dejected air. His was a shabby tidiness that spoke
+of a Woman and little means. He had sandy hair and light eyes and--but
+Christopher did not know this--an uncommonly shrewd little face and a
+good square head, and as he passed by the boundaries of Aston House
+he glanced at the small fellow-citizen gazing through the
+railings--rather compassionately, be it said--for he knew for certain
+the boy inside was longing to get through the gate. That one glance
+carried him beyond the gate, but he suddenly spun round on his heel,
+collided with an indignant lady laden with parcels, and stared hard at
+Christopher. Christopher stared hard at him. Then the boy outside went
+on his way.
+
+"Jolly like Jim," he ruminated, "but a swell toff, I reckon. Poor
+little kid."
+
+Christopher, after one shout as the boy went on, tore back through the
+garden towards the entrance gate, meaning to intercept him there. Such
+at least was his laudable intention, but half way there his pace
+slackened; he stood irresolute, kicking a loose stone in the gravel
+path, and finally strolled off to the stable yard to feed his
+guinea-pigs.
+
+He was preoccupied and thoughtful for the rest of that day. Mr. Aston
+was absent, and when evening came and Christopher was still a prey to
+harassing ideas he decided he must appeal to Caesar even at the cost of
+disregarding Mr. Aston's prohibition. He came to this decision as he
+lay in his usual position on the hearth-rug and was goaded thereto by
+the approach of bed time.
+
+"Caesar, could anyone be taken to prison for something he had done ever
+so long ago--I mean for--for stealing, and things like that?"
+
+"Yes, if he had not been already tried for it. Why do you ask?"
+
+"And if anyone met the person suddenly who had done something would
+they have to give him up?" persisted Christopher.
+
+Aymer regarded him curiously. He had an unreasonable impulse to check
+the coming revelation, as he might the unguarded confidence of a weak
+man, but common-sense prevailed.
+
+"It would depend on circumstances entirely, and the relationship of
+the two. Are you wanted, Christopher?" he asked in a matter-of-fact
+tone.
+
+"I was," returned Christopher slowly. "That's why we left London, you
+know. It was Marley Sartin. He took me out with him. You see," he
+broke off parenthetically, "I stayed with Martha, that's Mrs. Sartin,
+all the day while mother took care of a gentleman's house, and
+sometimes Marley was there, and he taught me things."
+
+"What things?"
+
+Christopher shifted his position a bit, and tossed a piece of wood
+into the fire.
+
+"Oh, lots of things," he repeated at last, "tricks, and how not to
+answer, and how to avoid coppers and how to get money. Mother said it
+was stealing."
+
+The scar on Aymer's forehead was very visible. He took up a
+paper-knife and ran his fingers along the edge slowly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The boy looked round, suddenly aware of where he was, of the beauty
+and comfort around him, of Caesar's personality, and the incongruity of
+his admission. However, so it was: facts were facts: it was imperative
+he should know his own position, even if it was an unpleasing subject.
+So he went on hastily. "Oh, well, one day he took me out with him for
+a walk. We went into a big sort of shop with lots of people buying
+things and he knocked up 'accidental like' (this was evidently a
+reminiscence of a phrase often used), against a lady and she dropped
+her parcels and purse and things, and I pretended to pick them up, and
+if there were only parcels or pennies I really did, but if the money
+spilt and it was gold I put my foot on it and picked it up for Marley
+when I could. We made a lot that way. Of course mother didn't know,"
+he added hurriedly, "or Martha. Then one day there was a row and
+Marley was caught, and I ran away. You see I was pretty small, and
+could slip in anywhere. I got back and told Martha, and she cried and
+told mother, and said as how I should be sure to be took too. So we
+went away from London that night. I don't know what happened to
+Martha, but mother said I mustn't go back to London or I'd be taken
+too."
+
+The grim tragedy of it all, the miserable fate from which the woman
+had fought so hard to save her child, and the same child's dim
+appreciation of it struck Aymer with the sharpness of physical pain.
+
+"Marley told me it was only keeping what one found, but mother said it
+was just stealing, and that Marley was bad. He was good to me anyhow.
+Martha--Mrs. Sartin--you know--used often to cry about Marley's ways.
+_She_ was always very respectable; her father kept a linen-draper's
+shop, and she meant to put Sam into a shop. Sam didn't like his
+father. I saw Sam go by to-day--he's bigger, but it was him and he
+knew me--and I asked about the being taken up because I thought it
+wouldn't be safe for me to go about perhaps."
+
+So level and even was his voice that Aymer did not guess the agony of
+apprehension and fear the boy was holding back behind his almost
+abnormal self-control, but he did his best to reassure him.
+
+"They would not know you, Christopher, and if they did they would not
+take you away from me. You were a very little boy then. I could let
+them know how it happened, and how it could never happen again."
+
+Christopher hid his face in his arms and the room became very silent.
+The fire crackled cheerfully and strange shadows lived uncertain lives
+on the ceiling. Aymer put the paper-knife down at last and looked at
+his charge. He was aware it was a critical moment for them both: also
+he was quite suddenly aware he was more fond of the child than he had
+previously imagined. But mostly in his mind was the sickening
+appreciation of what hours of torture that solitary silent woman must
+have endured.
+
+"Christopher, old boy, come here," he said quietly.
+
+The boy got up. His face was flushed, hot with his efforts to control
+himself.
+
+"Do you want the light, Caesar?"
+
+"No, I want you."
+
+He came unwillingly and sat down on the edge of the sofa, playing with
+a piece of string.
+
+"You need not be frightened at all," said Aymer. "It is all utterly
+impossible now, we both of us know that."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"You know it. You only did what Marley told you to do. You didn't
+steal because you wanted money yourself."
+
+But Christopher was doggedly truthful.
+
+"Marley used to give me some for myself, Caesar, and I liked it and I
+didn't think it was stealing. It was just keeping what one found."
+
+"But you knew to whom it belonged."
+
+"Not certain sure, Marley said."
+
+"What did your mother say?"
+
+"Just that it was stealing. She said, too, lots of people in the world
+were thieves who didn't know, and Marley was no worse than many rich
+men, who just knocked people down to get the best of them. What did
+she mean, Caesar?"
+
+"She thought it was as wrong for a rich man to take advantage of a
+poor man, as for a strong man to attack a weak one, or a cunning man
+to cheat a simpleton."
+
+Christopher was conscious he had heard something like this before. He
+nodded his small head sagely. Aymer went on.
+
+"It really means you must never get money at someone else's expense.
+If you can give them something in return, something equal, it's all
+right, but it must be equal. That is what your mother believed, and I
+do too--now."
+
+Christopher regarded Caesar thoughtfully. He was speculating what he
+did in return for the golden sovereigns that seemed so plentiful with
+him.
+
+"We try to give fair exchange," explained Caesar, answering his
+thoughts. "The money comes to us out of the big world. And my father
+gives the world good service in return. You will know how good,
+some-day."
+
+"Does everybody do things?" sighed his listener, much perplexed.
+
+"Everyone should. You are wondering what I do. My money comes to me
+before I earn it, from houses--land--I have to see the people who live
+in my houses have all that is fair and necessary, that the land is in
+order. Then sometimes we lend other people our money, and they find
+work for many others, and make more of it. Money is a very difficult
+thing to explain, Christopher. What I want you to remember now is that
+you must never take money from other people without giving something
+in return, because it's stealing."
+
+Christopher, with his usual disconcerting shrewdness, found an
+unsatisfactory point.
+
+"I don't do anything for the money you give me every week, Caesar."
+
+Aymer was fairly caught, and wanted desperately to laugh, only the
+boy's face was so grave and concerned he did not dare. He thought for
+a moment to find a way out of the difficulty without upsetting the
+somewhat vague theories he had just crystallised into words.
+
+"But I owe something to the world, and you are a small atom of the
+world, Christopher, so I choose to pay a mite of my debt that way.
+Besides, it is a part of your education to learn how to spend money,
+as much a part as Latin grammar."
+
+Christopher thought it a much pleasanter part and looked relieved.
+
+"I am glad you aren't paying me," he said slowly; "of course it's just
+my good luck that it happened to be me you pay your debts to. Lots of
+people aren't lucky like that."
+
+Which was a truth that remained very deeply indented in Christopher's
+mind. Aymer ordered him to bed, but when he said good-night he kept
+grip of his hand.
+
+"Why wouldn't you like me to pay you?" he demanded, almost roughly.
+
+The boy got red and embarrassed, but Aymer waited remorselessly.
+
+"I can't do anything," he said, "and if I did I'd hate you to pay me
+like that. Some day I'll have to pay you, won't I?"
+
+"I should hate that worse than you would," returned Aymer shortly.
+"There's no question of money between us. I get all I want out of you.
+Go to bed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Marden Court lay bathed in the mellow October sunshine. Late
+Michaelmas daisies, fuchsias, and milky anemones stood smiling bravely
+in the borders under the red brick walls, trails of crimson creepers
+flung a glowing glory round grey stone pillar and coping, and in the
+neighbouring woods the trees seemed to hold their breath under the
+weight of the rich robes they wore. Marden looked its best in late
+autumn. The ripeness of the air, the wealth of colour, and the
+harmonious dignity of the season seemed a fit setting to the old Tudor
+mansion, with its reposeful beauty just touched with renaissance
+grace. The glory of the world passes, but it is none the less a glory
+worth observing.
+
+The Astons regarded Marden as the metropolis of their affections. It
+was "Home" and any member of the family wanting to go "Home" did so
+regardless of who might be in immediate possession. Nevil Aston, his
+wife and two small children and his young sister-in-law lived there
+permanently, but their position was that of fortunate caretakers, and
+both the elder Aston and the Wyatts went to and fro at their will.
+
+Nevil Aston was at thirty-two a brilliant essayist and rising
+historian, and there was a magnificent library at Marden which he
+professed to find useful in his work. He also was wont to say "Marden
+was an excellent place in which to work, but a far better place in
+which to play." He himself did both in turn. A few weeks of furious
+energy and copious achievement would be followed by weeks of serene
+idleness from which little Renata, his wife, would arouse him by
+sheer bullying, as he himself expressed it, driving him by main force
+of will to the library, setting pen and paper to hand and then
+placidly consenting to weeks of irregular meals, of absent-minded
+vagaries, a seeming indifference to her presence, in place of the
+wholly dependent lovable boyish Nevil of the days of indolence.
+
+It was not till the second autumn after Christopher's introduction to
+the menage that the senior Astons decided to desert London for a few
+months and go "Home." Mr. Aston had been to and fro not infrequently
+and Nevil Aston had made a few brief visits to town, when Constantia
+Wyatt had made it her business to see that her gifted brother did not
+hide his light under a bushel, but little Christopher failed to
+connect either Nevil or his beautiful sister very closely with his own
+particular Astons. They were a part of an outside existence with which
+he was unacquainted, and Marden Court was to him but a name, an unreal
+place that got photographed occasionally and that Mr. Aston seemed to
+like. The Astons, probably quite unconsciously, pursued their usual
+course of leaving Christopher to drift into the stream of their
+existence without any explanation or attempt to make that existence a
+clear cut and dried affair to him. He was pleased enough with the idea
+of the change, once he had ascertained his guinea-pigs might accompany
+him, and was still more pleased when he was told he would at all
+events for a time have no lessons to do.
+
+"You'll have plenty to learn though," Aymer had remarked drily when he
+made the announcement. Christopher refrained from asking for an
+explanation with difficulty.
+
+Towards the middle of October Nevil Aston, just in the midst of a
+period of blissful laziness, sauntered down the long walks of the
+south garden in Renata's wake, occasionally stopping to pick up one or
+other of the two fat babies who struggled along after their mother,
+interrupting more or less effectually the business on which she was
+engaged. A pathetic-eyed yard or so of brown dachshund and a
+tortoise-shell kitten completed the party. Renata Aston was small and
+dark, gentle and deliberate of movement, and possessing an elf-like
+trick of shrinking her entrancing personality into comparative
+invisibility that bereft one of further vision. She moved from border
+to border choosing her flowers with care, and looking even smaller
+than she was in the proximity of her lanky husband, and the plump
+little babies toddling after.
+
+Presently she came to a stop. All her satellites stopped too. She
+regarded her trophies critically.
+
+"This is very good for the end of October, you know." She remarked to
+all the assembled court. "I only want some violets now. Nevil, I wish
+you'd stop Charlotte picking the heads off the fuchsias: there are no
+more to come out."
+
+Nevil hoisted his small daughter on his shoulder as the safest way to
+avoid an altercation and humbly asked if he must pick violets, "they
+grow so low down."
+
+"You grow so far up," she retorted scornfully. "Max can help me. You
+can watch with Charlotte. You are very good at watching people work."
+
+"It is not a common virtue," pleaded Nevil, "watchers generally tell
+the workers how to do it. I never do. Why don't you tell a gardener to
+pick them, Renata?"
+
+"A gardener! For Aymer?"
+
+"All this trouble for Aymer?"
+
+"It is a pleasure."
+
+"I know just how it will be," he complained mournfully, "the moment
+Aymer is here you will hound me off to work and I shall see nothing of
+you at all. You won't even give me new pens. Charlotte, I should look
+horrid if I had no hair: be merciful."
+
+Renata smiled and shook her head. "I shall get no more work out of you
+this side of Christmas, sir. I have no such impossible dreams. Perhaps
+Aymer won't want either of us now he has got Christopher."
+
+"I wonder now," remarked Nevil, depositing Miss Charlotte on a seat
+while he took out his cigarette case, "I wonder if you are jealous,
+Renata."
+
+She flushed indignantly and denied the fact with most unnecessary
+emphasis, so her husband told her in his gentle teasing way. He turned
+her face up to his and professed to look stern, which he never could
+do.
+
+"Confess now," he insisted. "Just a little jealous of Christopher?"
+
+"Well," she admitted, laughing and still pink, "Aymer has never stayed
+away from us for so long before. I don't know what was the use of his
+having those rooms done up for himself if he never means to use
+them."
+
+Renata continued to pick violets, and Max to decapitate those he could
+find. The dachshund and kitten continued to watch with absorbing
+interest, and Nevil continued to smoke and to let Charlotte
+investigate his cigarette case till her mother turned round and saw
+her.
+
+"You dreadful child!" she cried, "Nevil, just look. Charlotte is
+sucking the ends of your horrid cigarettes! How can you let her?"
+
+Charlotte was rescued from the cigarettes, or the cigarettes from
+Charlotte, with considerable difficulty and at the cost of many tears.
+Indeed her protestations were so loud that nurse appeared and bore her
+and Max away and silence again reigned in the warm garden between the
+sunny borders.
+
+The dachshund gave a sigh and flopped down on the path, and the kitten
+began a toilet for want of better employment. Renata, who had stood
+aside during the small domestic storm, gazed at her violets gravely
+as if she were counting them.
+
+Nevil watched her contentedly and did not observe the trouble in her
+face.
+
+"Nevil," she said at last, "about Charlotte I wonder--do you
+think----" she stopped and edged a little nearer her husband and
+slipped her hand in his.
+
+"Well, dear?"
+
+"You don't think, do you, Nevil, that Charlotte is--is getting like
+Patricia?"
+
+He put his arm round her and drew her down on the seat.
+
+"You dear silly child, no," he said, kissing her.
+
+She seemed only half assured and leant her head against him, sighing.
+
+"It is quite, quite different," he insisted. "Charlotte's temper is
+just like anyone else's, yours or mine, or anyone's."
+
+"Yours--you haven't got one," she returned with pretended contempt and
+then lapsed back into her troubled mien, "but I feel so frightened
+sometimes."
+
+"My dear, be reasonable. Patricia's temper isn't a temper at all.
+It's--it's a possession--a wretched family inheritance. She can't help
+it, poor child, any more than she could help a squint or a crooked
+nose, and she doesn't inherit it from _your_ mother but only from your
+step-father, so why on earth you should imagine it likely to crop up
+in our family I can't conceive. It's absurd."
+
+He tilted her pretty face up to his again and kissed her. Nevil would
+like to have killed all his wife's cares with a caress. It is not
+always a successful method, but it is more efficacious than the world
+believes.
+
+"Of course I know all that, though Patricia always seems quite like my
+own sister. I do hope Christopher won't tease her."
+
+"Aymer will see to that."
+
+"Not unless he is reminded. You know he rather loves teasing the poor
+darling himself."
+
+"Here is the poor darling, herself. Storm over, I suppose, sky
+serene."
+
+The little girl coming down the path to them was barely twelve, but
+she looked older. The features were too set, if anything, too regular
+for her to be called pretty as yet, but an observer must have been
+very blind to beauty not to see the possibilities shadowed in her
+face. She had quantities of smooth gold hair, one plait of which, for
+convenience's sake, was twisted round her little head that was at
+present too small for its rich burden. Her great dark grey eyes and
+long lashes had a curiously expectant look as if ever on the watch for
+some joy or pain to come. In the clearness of her complexion and the
+good modelling of her little white hands, she did resemble her
+half-sister, but it was the only likeness between them. She came to
+them not running, as a child should, but slowly and deliberately.
+
+"Patricia, do come and hear what this dreadful Nevil has let Charlotte
+do," cried Renata, still under shelter of her husband's long arm. For
+some reason she seemed anxious to let the child know she was seen and
+wanted. Nevil smiled and made room on the seat for her to sit by his
+side.
+
+Patricia stood in front of them, her great pathetic eyes looking from
+one to the other. She finally addressed herself to Nevil.
+
+"I'm ever so sorry, Nevil," she said with a dejected sigh.
+
+"Of course, of course, it's all right, child," he answered hastily,
+"come and hear my short-comings. I'm in deep disgrace."
+
+She sat down obediently and the dachshund immediately shifted its
+quarters and wedged itself in between her feet. She leant forward
+with her elbows on her knees and gazed absently at the brown head.
+
+"What have you been doing, Nevil, darling?"
+
+"I? Not I, but Charlotte. Don't you know by this time, Patricia, I'm
+only a scapegoat for the autocrat of the nursery."
+
+"He let Charlotte nibble a cigarette," explained Renata.
+
+"One of my very best."
+
+"It might have been one of his worst, Rennie," suggested Patricia
+consolingly.
+
+"They are all 'worst' for Charlotte," cried Renata springing up. "I
+must go and put up my flowers or they'll be here before I'm ready."
+
+She flitted away in the direction of the house. Her husband looked
+after her with mute sorrow at his own incapacity to melt from vision
+in that intangible manner--from situations that were too difficult.
+
+He glanced at his little companion, who was making attempts to tie the
+dachshund's ears round his own neck.
+
+"You won't be able to treat Christopher that way, Patricia," he said
+contemplatively, "but it will be jolly for you to have a companion of
+your own age, won't it?"
+
+"Perhaps he won't like me."
+
+"He is quite likely to like you."
+
+"Oh, yes, at first, because I'll make him," she returned with engaging
+candour, but then her mouth drooped a little, "but when he knows what
+I'm really like, he won't."
+
+Nevil examined another cigarette carefully to see it had not been
+nibbled. He was really very fond of his little sister-in-law though
+occasionally at a loss how to deal with her strange moods.
+
+"Well, we are all very fond of you, anyway, child," he said easily;
+"as for the temper, you can't really help it, you know, and you'll
+grow out of it. I'm sure you try to, my dear."
+
+"But I don't try," cried poor Patricia wildly, "I haven't time, I
+don't know anything about it till it's there and then it's too late. I
+might just as well have flung that plate at Charlotte as at you
+to-day. I wonder Renata lets me go in the nursery."
+
+"No, no. You wouldn't be angry with a baby."
+
+She turned to him with a sort of exasperated patience. "That's just
+it. You don't any of you understand. It does not make any difference,
+why, who or where. It just comes. I _can't_ help it." She kicked her
+heel on the gravel fiercely.
+
+"Poor little Patricia," said Nevil gently. "I can only say we all love
+you just the same, and I believe you'll grow out of it." She changed
+suddenly and flung herself into his arms in a wild transport of tears
+and childish abandonment. He was in no wise taken aback and soothed
+her with adroitness born of practice. When she was calm again he sat
+with his arm round her talking of indifferent things till a clock
+somewhere near struck three.
+
+"They should be here directly," he said, but made no effort to rise.
+
+"Would Aymer really mind being met?" she questioned.
+
+"He'd rather be left to Vespasian and Tollens."
+
+Tollens was the old butler.
+
+"Won't he ever get used to it?"
+
+"He is afraid of becoming an invalid if he gets hardened to it."
+
+"But he is, isn't he?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. He has perfectly wonderful health. He has massage
+and all sorts of things to keep him up to the mark. Aymer's as vain as
+a girl."
+
+"I don't call it vanity. I call it pluck."
+
+Nevil groaned, "Oh, you women, old and young! But you are right--and
+there are my father and Christopher himself."
+
+Christopher to his great joy had been allowed to drive down with Aymer
+and Mr. Aston, and had found the journey not one mile too long. Indeed
+towards the end his early curiosity as to the termination had
+evaporated and the mile-stones had come in sight and vanished all too
+quickly. It had been reassuring to find Vespasian awaiting them at the
+door with the old butler to whom he was formally introduced as Mr.
+Aymer's ward. Then having inquired of Tollens of the family's
+whereabouts, Mr. Aston bore off Christopher for further
+introductions.
+
+At the entrance to the garden on the long terrace and by the gate
+leading to the south garden he had paused and looked round with the
+slow comprehensive glance of one acquainted with every detail. He
+spoke nothing of his thoughts to Christopher, but the boy was quite
+acutely aware that Mr. Aston loved this place and was happy to see it
+again, while he calmly discussed the possibilities of fishing in the
+lake that lay below like a silver mirror in the clear sunlight.
+
+And in the south garden Nevil and Patricia met them. Patricia, still
+white and shaken with the past storm, greeted Mr. Aston shyly, but had
+no qualms about greeting Christopher. He, for his part, was far too
+shy and too unused to girls' society to notice her mien. He did,
+however, remember afterwards that she was standing by a great clump of
+purple starlike flowers and that he thought her the most beautiful
+thing he had ever seen, excepting, of course, Constantia Wyatt. He
+made that mental reservation as they walked along together in front of
+their elders, and then glancing sideways at the wonderful hair again,
+decided he liked fair hair best. Constantia's was dark. They soon
+outdistanced the two men who followed at a leisurely pace. Mr. Aston
+looked after them and said kindly:
+
+"The little girl still gives trouble, I see."
+
+"Occasionally." Nevil made the admission with reluctance. "There was a
+scene this morning. I don't know what started it. Perhaps I teased
+her. She flung a plate at me. I don't believe she _can_ help it, poor
+child."
+
+"You mustn't tell her so, Nevil."
+
+"You'd tell her anything you could if you saw her after. She'll grow
+out of it."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+They fell to talking of the estate, which Nevil was supposed to look
+after. He did, when he remembered it, but that was not often, and not
+of late. His father, half exasperated, half laughing, told him he
+would defer his lecture till later on. Nevil penitently agreed it was
+only fitting to do so, and slipping his arm through his father's,
+began to explain to him the rights of a controversy just started in
+the _Historical Review_. No one was ever angry with Nevil long. His
+unchangeable sweet temper and gentle judgment of mankind, his entire
+lack of vanity and the very real ability that was concealed under his
+elusive personality outweighed the exasperation his irresponsibility
+and indolence sometimes awoke. He had no enemies among those who knew
+him, and the bitterest controversy with pen and ink could be brought
+to a close in an interview. It must, however, be confessed that with
+pen in hand Nevil was more dangerous than the unwary might imagine. He
+knew his power with that weapon and when he chose to use it, did so to
+good purpose with a polished finish to his scathing periods, that made
+men twenty years his senior hate with fierce passion Aston the writer,
+as surely as they would end by appreciation of Aston the man after a
+personal encounter.
+
+Patricia and Christopher having outdistanced their elders proceeded
+to make friends in their own way. The girl began operations by asking
+if he would like to see the stables and found it aroused no enthusiasm
+in him, which was a point to the bad. But he was polite enough to say
+he would like to go if she wished it, which nearly equalised matters
+again. She confessed it might be nice to have someone to play with,
+which Christopher thought very friendly of her, and told her of his
+guinea-pigs, which would arrive in the evening with Robert and the
+luggage. That was distinctly a point to the good; they both waxed
+eloquent over the special qualities of guinea-pigs. Christopher's
+original two had already increased alarmingly in numbers. He hinted
+some might even be left at Marden--in a good home. Also he told her he
+had christened the family by the names of great painters.
+
+"Caesar taught me the names," he explained, "there is Velasquez--he
+painted the Don Carlos in Caesar's room, you know--he's brown all over
+except for one spot--_my_ Velasquez, I mean--and there's Watteau--an
+awful frisky little beast--and Sir Joshua, who sleeps in my pocket.
+You'll like Sir Joshua, he's awfully good tempered."
+
+"I know," nodded Patricia wisely, "and he painted Nevil's great
+grandmother. It's in the drawing-room. Why do you call Aymer
+'Caesar'?"
+
+"Because he always does what he means to do, or gets it done; besides
+he is--just Caesar."
+
+"It isn't bad," she said condescendingly, "perhaps I shall call him so
+myself. I do hope we are going to have tea in his room. It's such a
+lovely, lovely room."
+
+"So it is in London. The beautifulest room I've seen."
+
+"It's just as nice here," she maintained stoutly, "he planned how it
+was to be done, and Nevil saw to it. I like this best."
+
+Christopher was too polite or too shy to insist, but he felt doubtful
+and became impatient to see for himself, so they went indoors to find
+Patricia's hopes were justified. Tea was served in "Mr. Aymer's"
+room.
+
+And Christopher was obliged to allow that Patricia had some ground for
+her statement. It was a smaller room than the one in London, and
+singularly like it, only the prevailing note was lighter and gayer in
+tone. Aymer was there, lying on a similar sofa to his usual one, with
+the familiar cover across his feet.
+
+Renata was making tea, and making Caesar laugh also. Christopher was
+uncomfortably conscious it was all new to him and the familiarity only
+superficial, while it was a well-recognised phase in Caesar's life.
+Even Nevil Aston seemed a different person in his easy country dress,
+and Christopher failed at first to connect the dark little lady at the
+tea table with him, and only noted she took Aymer his tea, which was
+his, Christopher's, special privilege, and treated him with a friendly
+familiarity that nearly bordered on contempt in Christopher's eyes.
+
+Aymer saw the children and called to them. Patricia greeted him with
+the air of a young princess and drew herself up when he said she had
+grown, and would soon be a child instead of a baby. Then he faced
+Christopher round towards Renata, who had suddenly become grave and
+shy.
+
+"Here is Christopher, so you can approve or condemn Nevil by your own
+judgment, Renata. Christopher, shake hands with Mrs. Aston."
+
+Christopher did as he was told, but he realised they had been speaking
+of him and felt on the defensive. However, he sat down as near to
+Caesar as he could. They talked of all manner of people and things of
+which he knew nothing, traditional jokes cropped up, and Aymer's
+propensity for teasing asserted itself in a prominent manner. Renata
+never failed to respond and never failed to claim Nevil's protection
+and to look delightfully shy and dignified and feminine. Presently the
+children were sent for. To Christopher's indignant amazement they were
+plumped down on Aymer and allowed to treat him much as if he was a new
+species of giant plaything. Charlotte, in her efforts to burrow under
+Aymer's arm, rolled off the edge of the sofa and was deftly caught by
+Christopher, who deposited her on the floor. She immediately tried to
+clamber up again, but Aymer could not second her efforts with his left
+arm.
+
+"Put her up again, Christopher," he said.
+
+But Christopher apparently did not hear, and Mr. Aston, who had been
+watching, came to the rescue. Christopher slipped away to the window.
+
+"A question of a third baby, I think," said Mr. Aston softly as he
+rearranged Charlotte, and Aymer, looking sharply at Christopher,
+laughed.
+
+When Christopher went to bid him good-night, he found Caesar alone,
+looking tired and doing nothing, not even reading.
+
+Christopher said good-night gravely.
+
+"It's not very late," remarked Aymer. "Stay with me a bit."
+
+He patted the chair beside him. Christopher with rather a hot face
+obeyed.
+
+"How do you like Marden?"
+
+"I--I don't know yet. There seems to be a lot of people here."
+
+"It's home, you see. We all come home when we want to see each other
+and have people round."
+
+"Yes, I suppose everyone wants to see their people sometimes."
+
+"Don't you like seeing people?"
+
+"I haven't any of my own," said Christopher, without looking at him.
+
+"That's unkind. You have us."
+
+Christopher changed the subject.
+
+"Do those--those little children live here?"
+
+"Yes. It's their home. They are rather jolly little kids. What's the
+matter, Christopher?"
+
+Christopher assured him nothing was the matter.
+
+Aymer continued in his most matter-of-fact voice.
+
+"I'm fond of those babies. To begin with they are Nevil's and they are
+the only youngsters I am likely to know well. But I'm a greedy person.
+I had Nevil, Renata, the kiddies--and that delightfully odd Patricia,
+and it wasn't enough for me. They were all as good as could be to me,
+but I wanted to be more than an extra in someone's life, so I must
+needs encumber myself with a troublesome little boy who's even more
+greedy than myself, apparently."
+
+Christopher sat with his curly head on his hands trying not to give in
+to the smile that was struggling to express some undefined sense of
+content which had sprung to life.
+
+"You are a bad, silly boy to be jealous," said Aymer, watching him,
+half laughing, half affectionately, "you ought to have known for
+yourself, if they had been enough for me, you wouldn't be here at
+all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Two events wrote themselves indelibly on Christopher's memory in
+connection with this first visit to Marden, while the one great matter
+that began there and influenced his whole after life merged itself
+into a general hazy sense of happiness and companionship. For it is
+given to few of us even when we have reached years of discretion to
+recognise those moments in our lives which are of real, supreme, and
+eternal importance: moments when the great doors of experience open
+slowly on silent hinges and we pass in, unconscious even that we have
+crossed the threshold. But all that happens to our familiar selves,
+that touches our well-known emotions, and rubs or eases the worn
+grooves of existence, is heavily underscored in our recollection, and
+not infrequently we take for mile-stones on the way what were but
+pebbles on the road.
+
+The two events which Christopher carried in his memory were, however,
+not unimportant, for both bore on his relationship with the man who
+was moulding his life. The one episode turned Vespasian's bald
+statements into real emotional facts, and the other was the first
+serious collision between the far-off disastrous tutelage of Marley
+Sartin and the new laws of existence as propounded by Aymer Aston.
+
+Christopher's education made vast strides during that winter. The
+season proved an unusually mild one. He was out the greater part of
+each day with Patricia, enduring with remarkable fortitude her
+alternate contempt and despair over his ignorance of such everyday
+matters as horses, guns, dogs, desert island games, and such like.
+When she laughed at him for not being able to ride he shut his teeth
+hard not to remind her he'd never possessed a shetland pony from
+birth as she had, also he rose at an unconscionable early hour and
+rode in the cold winter's dawn round and round the exercising yard
+with the young grooms, while Patricia was warm and fast asleep in bed.
+But he had his reward when Mr. Aston, who had heard of his doings from
+the stud-groom, took him out with him on one of his rounds of
+inspection to outlying farms.
+
+"The boy's got a good seat, and pluck, Aymer," reported Mr. Aston.
+"It's more creditable to him because he has had to learn. It's not
+second nature to him."
+
+It took him less trouble to learn how to handle a gun, and when "off
+duty" to Patricia, spent a vast amount of time in the electric plant
+house, learning the A B C of a big dynamo.
+
+Aymer knew all this and made no mention of lessons, for Christopher
+was backward in more matters than booklearning and the life on a big
+estate, the infinite variety of interests was all good food for the
+boy's hungry brain and soul.
+
+He grew apace. Mr. Aston declared he was a changeling and not the thin
+little urchin he had first encountered by the mile-stone on the Great
+Road. They never alluded to his life before that, though they all knew
+of it, and made their own private comparisons and observations.
+
+Christopher became quite attached to the babies so long as they did
+not intrude on his own particular hours with Caesar, but he did not get
+over a certain shy reserve towards Renata.
+
+"She slips into empty places," he said to Caesar once, and Caesar
+laughed at him and told Renata, who coloured and wrinkled her little
+forehead.
+
+"He is a nice boy," she said, "and I love him for being so good to
+Patricia. There hasn't been a storm since he came."
+
+One day, when it was too wet for even Christopher to be out, the two
+children amused themselves by turning out a cupboard in a disused
+room. It was a perfect stronghold of treasures. Old riding whips,
+Badminton Magazines (marked Aymer Aston, Christopher noticed), tennis
+balls, cricket pads, a pair of fencing foils and mask and gloves, a
+host of sporting trophies from a hare's pad to a wolf's ear labelled
+"Kronigratz," and last of all a box full of photographs.
+
+Patricia was called away before they could investigate this last
+treasure trove, and Christopher, not to be alone in the glory of
+discovery, carried it off to Caesar's room and lay on the hearth-rug
+enjoying it till Caesar, busy working out estate accounts for his
+father, was at liberty to look too. They were interesting
+photographs,--to a boy. Mostly of horses ridden, led, alone, jumping,
+horses galloping, horses trotting, and over and over again a picture
+of one horse, and rider, who never seemed to wear a hat and had a
+thick head of hair that looked as if it might be the same colour as
+Caesar's. At last he came to a bigger, more distinct photo of the same
+man and horse. The horse was evidently a polo-pony and was galloping
+and the man on it in white riding things, with his shirt open at the
+neck and was swinging a polo stick in his hand. There was no mistaking
+it this time: it was undoubtedly Caesar. Christopher gave a little
+gasp. Caesar like that, vigorous, active, panting,--Christopher could
+feel it so--with life and excitement. He scrambled to his knees with
+the picture in his hand.
+
+"Caesar, dear Caesar, look what I've found."
+
+Aymer looked round, saw the scattered photographs, and held out his
+hand.
+
+"Is it you really? May I have it for myself?"
+
+Caesar took the card and as he gave it up, Christopher knew he had made
+a mistake, and got scarlet.
+
+"Where did you find it?" demanded Aymer sharply.
+
+"In the cupboard in the little red room. We were turning it out."
+
+"Yes, it's I. Why shouldn't it be? I wasn't always a cripple, you
+know."
+
+He tossed the picture back on the rug. The scar stood out white and
+distinct, and his face was strangely hard and set. A book slipped down
+on the left side and he tried to catch it with the left hand and
+failed, and it fell with a bang on the floor.
+
+"May I have it?" asked Christopher meekly from the rug.
+
+"What for? You don't know the horse and you don't know the man. Put it
+in the fire."
+
+"No, I won't," exclaimed Christopher indignantly. "Caesar, don't be so
+horrid, it's--it's--exactly like you."
+
+Caesar ignored his own command and asked another question instead.
+"Where did you say you found it?"
+
+"In a cupboard in the little red room. It's such a jolly little room.
+It isn't used now and there's hardly anything in it, but the cupboards
+are full of things--lovely things. Patricia and I just explored."
+
+"It used to be my room and the things are all mine. Why haven't they
+burnt them?" he muttered.
+
+Christopher gathered up the unlucky photographs and put them back in
+the box. He was dimly conscious he did not want Mr. Aston to come and
+see them.
+
+"I'm sorry, Caesar, I didn't know we shouldn't have done it."
+
+"You haven't done any harm, I--I had no business to be cross, old
+fellow. Come and show me the pictures again, I'll tell you about
+them."
+
+Christopher sat down on the sofa with the box in his hand. He really
+did want to know about them if Caesar wasn't going to be angry. He took
+out a photo at random.
+
+"That was my first race-horse," said Caesar. "Her name was Loadstar.
+She didn't win much, but I thought a lot of her. And that--oh, that's
+a mastiff I had: he was magnificent, but such a brute I had to kill
+him. He went for one of the stable boys and I hardly got him off in
+time. I've got the marks now of his claws: he never bit me. We used to
+wrestle together."
+
+"Wrestle with a dog?"
+
+"Yes, I used to be fairly strong, you know, Christopher. It was good
+training throwing him--sometimes it was the other way. But he had to
+die, poor old Brutus."
+
+"How did you kill him?"
+
+"I shot him," said Caesar shortly, "don't ask for morbid particulars.
+Where is another picture?"
+
+"This?"
+
+This was a photo of a horse standing alone in a field and beneath was
+written, "Jessica waiting to be tamed." Aymer offered no
+explanation,--if Christopher had looked he would have seen the scar
+show up again sharply over a frown.
+
+The next was rather a wicked snap-shot of Aymer cover shooting, with
+what looked suspiciously like a dead fox curled up at his feet.
+
+"It was a wretched little cub I had tamed," he explained, "the little
+beast used to follow me everywhere. It's really tied up to a tree, but
+it always lay out as if dead when it heard a gun. I took it out with
+me to try and get it used to the sound."
+
+There was a picture of Aymer and Nevil riding and coming over a big
+water jump side by side.
+
+Aymer told him it was at the Central Horse Show and related the
+triumphs and honours of the day.
+
+But when the polo photograph turned up again Aymer appeared tired of
+the amusement, and sent Christopher off to meet his father in the
+brougham at Maidley station, four miles distant. "If someone doesn't
+go he'll be reading reports and working out figures till he arrives at
+the door," said Aymer. "It's disgraceful not to know how to take a
+holiday properly. It's only small boys who ought to work like that,"
+he added severely.
+
+"You haven't given me any work to do, Caesar," protested Christopher,
+but Caesar only laughed.
+
+When the boy had gone, however, Aymer continued to turn over the
+photographs. It was an extremely unwise proceeding, for each of them
+called him with irresistible voice back to the past from which he had
+sworn he would turn his eyes. It was always there with its whispering,
+mocking echo, but like a good fighter he had learnt to withstand its
+insidious temptations, and hold fast to the quiet, secure present
+where all he could know of joy or fulfilment was centred.
+
+But there it was, the great gulf that lay between him and the past, in
+which were swallowed up the hopes, ambitions, expectations of his
+vigorous youth, and all the possibilities of a man's life. He had
+fathomed it to its blackest depth, and seen no hope of escape or
+rescue. And yet he had escaped, through the devotion and courage of
+his father. And it was the ever-living recollection of that devotion
+that helped him to keep his face turned from the other side of the
+gulf. Only on rare occasions did his strength of purpose fail him, and
+by some momentary carelessness he found himself caught back into a
+black hour of bitterness and helpless anger.
+
+There was no one to blame but himself, no power to accuse but his own
+headlong passion, and the imperious impatience that would take no gift
+from life but that of his own choosing. There had been a woman and a
+tangle of events, and his passion-blinded eyes could see no way of
+disentangling it, and yet how trivial and easy the unravelling
+appeared now. The quick--not resolve--but impulse that caught him on
+the crest of his uncontrolled, wild temper, and prompted the shot that
+missed its intention by a hairs-breadth: the whole so instantaneous,
+so brief a hurricane of madness, succeeded by the long pulseless
+stillness of this life of his now.
+
+To do, and not to be able to undo, to hunger and thirst and ache to
+take back only a short minute of life, to feel sick and blind before
+the irretrievableness of his own deed, that was still his punishment
+in these rare hours of darkness.
+
+He had fought for life at first with all that virile strength of his
+and won this limited existence which, when he first understood its
+cruelly narrow horizon, he had as ardently longed and sought to lose
+again, but the life principle that had been so roughly handled was
+marvellously tenacious, and refused to be ousted from its tenement.
+Slowly and painfully Aymer had groped his way from desolate despair to
+something higher than mere placid resignation, to a brave tolerance of
+himself and an open heart to what life might still offer him.
+
+There was, however, little toleration in his heart at this hour as he
+lay staring at the photograph, and then suddenly looked round the room
+he had made so beautiful for himself. It was just as usual, every
+detail complete, satisfactory, balanced, redeemed too from its own
+beauty by its strange freedom from detail and its emptiness.
+
+It pleased him well as a rule, but this evening that same emptiness
+seemed to emphasise his own isolation. He was suddenly conscious of a
+sense of incompleteness, of some detail left out that should be
+there--a want he could not measure or define. It was a sort of
+culminating point in his own grey thoughts. In a gust of his old
+imperious temper he caught up the photograph and tore it in half, and
+flung it from him: tried to fling into the fire and failed even in
+that. The box of photographs fell and scattered on the floor. He
+turned his head sharply and hid his face in the cushions.
+
+It was very quiet in the room, the fire burnt steadily, and outside
+the dusk had already fallen. There was a very little knock at the
+door, but he did not hear it; the door opened with a breath of fresh
+cold air and a faint scent of violets as Renata entered.
+
+She saw she was unobserved, saw his attitude, and her whole being
+seemed to melt into an expression of longing compassion. Nevil or his
+father would have gone away unseen in respect for his known weakness,
+but Renata for all her shyness had the courage of her instincts.
+
+"May I come and warm myself, Aymer? You always have the best fire in
+the house."
+
+He did not move for a moment.
+
+Renata knelt by the fire with her back to him and took off her long
+soft gloves, her bracelets making a little jangling sound. Then she
+saw the torn picture and picked it up and shook her head
+disapprovingly. The overturned box lay nearer the sofa. She picked
+that up too, and began replacing its contents in a matter-of-fact
+way.
+
+"You can't possibly see things in this light," she remarked. "It is
+getting quite dark. Do you want a light, Aymer?"
+
+"No," said Aymer abruptly, turning so that he could see her.
+
+She sat down in a big chair the other side of the hearth and began
+chatting of the very serious At Home she had just attended in
+Winchester.
+
+The black mood slipped from him, and with it the sense of need and
+incompleteness. It had melted as snow before a fire the moment he had
+heard the swish of her dress across the floor, and the breath of
+violets reached him. He forgot even to be ashamed of his own passing
+weakness as he watched her. She was all in brown with strange
+beautiful gold work shining here and there. She had flung back her
+furs and there was a big bunch of violets in her dress. He watched her
+little white fingers unfasten them as she talked.
+
+"If they would not think they were amusing themselves, I could endure
+it," she said, "but they solemnly pretend it's amusement and frivolous
+at that. One old lady told me gravely, she hardly thought it seemly
+that the Dean should so lend himself to the pleasures of the world.
+There, the violets are not spoilt at all. The Dean gave them to me:
+it's the one thing he can do--grow violets. You shall have them all to
+yourself." She fetched a silver cup and began arranging them. Aymer
+ceased to be tired, ceased to be anything but supremely content as his
+eyes followed her. She went on relating her experience until she had
+made him laugh, and then she came and sat on a little stool near him.
+
+"May I have the babies down?"
+
+Aymer pretended to grumble.
+
+"You'll go to them if I say no," he complained, "so I have no
+option."
+
+The bell was rung and the babies ordered to descend.
+
+"Before they come, Caesar, I'm going to ask you a favour," she said
+coaxingly, "now you are in a good temper again."
+
+"Was I in a bad one?"
+
+"Dreadful. It mustn't reoccur. It is such a bad example for the
+children."
+
+"The favour, please; bother the children."
+
+"Caesar, I'm ashamed of you. Bless them, you meant to say. Well, the
+favour. Aymer, I am going to start a creche in Winchester near the big
+clothing factory. I've talked to the Bishop and he quite approves. I
+know just the house, but I shall have to buy it, and I haven't enough
+money for that. I can run it easily if I can only get the premises.
+What will you subscribe?"
+
+"I haven't any money at all," he replied gravely. "Vespasian takes it
+all and I don't think he'd approve of creches, not being a family
+man."
+
+"Vespasian, indeed." She tilted her chin in the air as Aymer meant her
+to do, a trifle too much, and the effect was spoilt, but he was well
+practised in obtaining the exact tilt he admired.
+
+"You can ask him, of course."
+
+"Very likely I will: in the meantime what will you give me?"
+
+"Half a crown. No; five whole shillings, if I have it," he said
+teasingly.
+
+She considered the matter gravely. "I am not quite sure. I should not
+like to inconvenience you. Shall we say four and six?"
+
+"No, I will be generous. I'll do this. If you will take the risk of
+being accused of burglary by Vespasian, I happen to know there is some
+money in the right hand drawer of the table over there. I don't know
+how much. Fivepence, perhaps, but you shall have whatever it is."
+
+Renata walked with great dignity across the room and opened the
+drawer. A little smile hovered about her lips. She picked up a handful
+of gold and silver and sat down by him to count it.
+
+"It looks an awful lot," he remarked anxiously. "Won't you let me off?
+Vespasian is always complaining of my extravagance."
+
+"Sh----Sh----" she held up one finger, "ten, eleven, twelve, and two
+and six, that's thirteen,--no, fourteen and sixpence."
+
+"Leave me the sixpence," he urged plaintively, but she continued
+counting.
+
+"Seven pounds, four shillings and sixpence. Count it yourself,
+Aymer."
+
+Aymer counted and gravely pronounced her arithmetic to be correct.
+
+"Thank you, you are a dear." She piled the coins up neatly in little
+piles on the table by her side. He told her she had better put it in
+her pocket.
+
+"I haven't one," she sighed.
+
+"You will be sure to forget it, and then Vespasian will get it
+again."
+
+"Is it likely I would forget seven pounds, four shillings and
+sixpence?"
+
+But she did. The children arrived and rioted over Aymer. Master Max
+bumped his head and had to be consoled with his uncle's watch, while
+Charlotte wandered off on a voyage of exploration alone, and finally
+sat on the floor by the window with her fat legs straight out in front
+of her, making a doll of one arm by wrapping it up in her dress, and
+singing to herself.
+
+"She has quite an idea of time already: listen to her, Aymer."
+
+But Aymer only scoffed at his niece's accomplishments, and then Nevil
+came in and went down on his knees to kiss his wife, who was much too
+occupied with her son and heir to move for him. For a moment all three
+heads were on a level, and it was only when the long Nevil stood up
+and Renata was reaching up on tip-toe to put some of the violets in
+his coat that Aymer's sense of completeness vanished. Finally the
+children were carried off and he was alone again.
+
+"It's a lucky thing for me," he said to himself steadily, "that Nevil
+married Renata: he might just as easily have married someone I
+couldn't endure."
+
+When Christopher and Mr. Aston returned they found Aymer whistling and
+drawing ridiculous caricatures of the family on the back of the
+_Times_, and he was so outrageously flippant and witty that his father
+glanced at him suspiciously from time to time.
+
+"Why haven't you let Vespasian light up?" he inquired.
+
+"I'm afraid to call Vespasian. Renata has been raiding and I shall get
+a lecture. She's left her booty, as I told her she would. Christopher,
+when you have quite finished pretending it's your duty to draw the
+curtains, you might run up with this money to her. Put it in that
+box."
+
+Christopher came forward rather slowly. He swept the money into the
+box indicated.
+
+"What a lot," he commented.
+
+"Seven pounds, four shillings, and sixpence, and I am now penniless. I
+shan't even get credit with Heaven. She'll appropriate that."
+
+Christopher ran off with it and meeting Nevil on the stairs gave it
+into his hand. Renata had gone to dress, and Nevil sauntered in to his
+wife with her "spoils" at once.
+
+"Seven pounds, four and sixpence," she said gleefully. "For the creche
+fund. It was nice of Aymer. I had not meant to worry him to-day, but
+he wanted distraction."
+
+"I thought Vespasian kept his money. Six pounds four and sixpence,
+Renata," Nevil remarked, counting the money carelessly. She came over
+to him, brush in hand.
+
+"You can't even do addition. Nothing but dates! I counted it most
+carefully, so did Aymer."
+
+"Then he's defrauded you of a pound since."
+
+"Nonsense."
+
+They counted it together, but no amount of reckoning would make seven
+sovereigns out of six. The silver was correct.
+
+"It must have fallen down," said Renata at last and put it away
+carefully in her desk.
+
+They were late for dinner, and Mr. Aston pretended to upbraid them and
+told Renata to take her soup and leave her correspondence alone, for
+there was a big envelope lying by her plate. It was her
+father-in-law's contribution to the creche scheme, Aymer having
+forestalled her request, and joined forces with his father in a really
+adequate sum.
+
+Renata got pink with pleasure as she looked at the cheque. She was,
+however, far too shy to express her real gratitude in words before
+them all. She smiled at the donor and remarked she would give him a
+big photograph in a beautiful frame of the first baby admitted to the
+creche, to hang in his room as a slight token of her appreciation of
+his gift.
+
+"It shall take the place of Charlotte," he assured her gravely.
+
+Aymer looked aggrieved.
+
+"May I ask the precise sum, Renata?" he inquired pointedly, "that
+earns so gracious a reward."
+
+"It's three figures," she answered, regarding the precious slip of
+paper affectionately before replacing it in its imposing envelope.
+
+"Ninety-two pounds, fifteen and sixpence more," he groaned; "it's a
+lot for a photograph of a mere baby, but I can't be left out in the
+cold."
+
+"Perhaps I can let you have one without a frame for less, only
+father's must be the best."
+
+"Nevil," remarked Aymer severely, "I would call your attention to the
+fact that your wife is beginning to weigh men's merits by their
+means."
+
+Nevil only laughed.
+
+"I hear she has raided you of all you possess. Six pounds odd."
+
+"Seven pounds four and sixpence," corrected Aymer. "I should like the
+correct sum printed in good plain figures on your list, Renata. Being
+my all, it is a superior present to more pretentious donations."
+
+"Six pounds four and sixpence, however," persisted Nevil.
+
+Aymer looked up quickly.
+
+"Did you count it?"
+
+Nevil nodded.
+
+"It must have dropped," said Aymer slowly. "I'll send it you with the
+interest, Renata."
+
+But he knew it had not been dropped.
+
+Mr. Aston began telling them of a deputation from the Friends of the
+Canine Race he had received that day, and no more was said on the
+other matter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Although Christopher's habit of acquisitiveness had given Aymer some
+uneasy moments, yet there had been so far no very serious conflict of
+the question of meum and tuum. Aymer had sought rather to overwrite
+the rude scrawl of Marley Sartin than to erase it. The most serious
+aspect that had shown itself hitherto was Christopher's readiness to
+accept tips from over-generous callers and even to put himself to
+ingenious trouble to invite them. Constantia Wyatt was a great
+offender in this and brought down a severe scolding on her own head
+from her brother when he at last learnt of Christopher's propensity.
+
+"He does it so neatly and with such a charming, innocent face,"
+pleaded Constantia, half laughing; "it's no harm, Aymer. All boys like
+tips: I know my boy does."
+
+But she rather libelled Master Basil Wyatt, who, though not averse to
+a donation, would have scorned to solicit it. Aymer had told
+Christopher that gentlemen did not do these things and had taken care
+to keep the boy out of the way of departing visitors. But this had
+been before his first lecture on the obligations of money, and
+Christopher had taken that lesson to heart and quite outgrown his
+childish and perfectly innocent habit of inviting tips.
+
+Aymer was furiously angry with himself for the quick suspicion which
+connected the boy with the missing sovereign. He tried honestly to put
+it away from himself as unwarrantable and dangerous. But there it was,
+a wretched little poisonous thought, tugging at his heart,
+unreasonably coupled with a recollection of a conversation between
+Patricia and Christopher that he had overheard one afternoon at
+tea-time, anent the construction of an amateur brickwork bridge
+across an inconvenient stream. Patricia had said they could buy bricks
+at the brick-yard, and Christopher had said he had no money left; it
+would cost lots and lots and they must wait till pay-day.
+
+He mentioned the loss of the sovereign to Christopher and asked if he
+had dropped the money on the stairs, and Christopher had composedly
+answered in the negative, and had volunteered the remark that if it
+had been dropped in the room it could not have rolled far on the thick
+carpet. Aymer had been for the moment convinced of the injustice of
+his own suspicion. He made no attempt to discover any other solution
+to the problem; rather he evaded what might prove a difficult task,
+and contented himself with solemnly sending Renata a cheque for the
+remainder "with interest," and neither Renata nor Nevil spoke of the
+matter again, at least to him. Nevil may have had his own opinions
+about it, and if he had they were quite certainly communicated to his
+wife. The worrying uncertainty, however, proved too much for Aymer,
+and the following evening when he was alone with his father he told
+him the story, half hoping to be scolded for harbouring uncharitable
+suspicions. Now, Mr. Aston had been scrupulous to a fault in avoiding
+the offer of any suggestions or advice on Christopher's upbringing. He
+desired above all things to leave Aymer free in his chosen task, but
+he realised at once this was a point where Aymer was quite as likely
+to hurt himself as Christopher, and, therefore, that he, Aymer's
+father, must make an exception to his rule and he did not like it. He
+began drawing vague lines on his shirtcuff with a pencil, an evil
+habit of his when uneasy in mind. Aymer watched him with disapproval.
+
+"After all our efforts," he sighed gravely, "you still persist in your
+old bad ways, sir. How often have I entreated you to remember a poor
+valet's feelings, and how often has Nevil begged you to recollect the
+sorrows of the washerwoman?"
+
+Mr. Aston laughed and put away his pencil.
+
+"Nevil once indited an ode to me entitled 'The Lament of the
+Laundress.' I fear I'm incorrigible."
+
+"What displeases you, sir?" demanded his son after a little pause;
+"it's no use pretending there's nothing wrong; you only do that when
+you want to say something you think won't be acceptable."
+
+"Well, then, Aymer, I say this: Christopher is your concern. I don't
+doubt your power to manage him, but I can speak of yourself, and I
+tell you it's a very bad thing to live with an unsatisfied suspicion;
+particularly bad for you. If you don't clear this up you will never
+feel quite at ease with the boy. It is so already, is it not?"
+
+Aymer admitted reluctantly that it was indeed the case.
+
+"Don't let anything stand between you, Aymer. I am thinking of you, of
+course," he added hastily.
+
+"Are you sure you are not thinking of yourself?" returned his son,
+half laughing, half ruefully; and his father flushed a little.
+
+"Perhaps I was," he said humbly. "It would worry me if you were not
+happy with him."
+
+Aymer laughed outright at that and assured him he knew how to make
+allowances for his well-known selfishness. But he took his advice and
+grappled with the difficulty next afternoon. Christopher was mending a
+rod, seated on the floor as usual.
+
+"We've not found that sovereign," said Caesar abruptly.
+
+Christopher looked up quickly, and then went on with his work after a
+brief "Oh!"
+
+"Did you take it, Christopher?"
+
+He asked the question quite slowly and looked at the boy, who got
+scarlet but went on tying his rod and appeared to be considering the
+question carefully, weighing it in his mind as it were, and when he
+answered, it was as deliberately as Aymer had questioned him.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Aymer felt a sudden sense of relief, for lying had not been one of
+Christopher's faults. Then almost immediately he found himself
+wondering first, why the boy was not angry, and secondly, why it had
+taken so much thought to answer at all. However, he let the matter
+drop and told himself he was satisfied. Christopher finished mending
+his rod and then sat still considering deeply. Presently he took out a
+penny from his pocket and began rolling it on the thick carpet, and,
+as he had remarked to Caesar, it did not roll far, try as he would. At
+last he jumped up with a satisfied mien and went out. Caesar heard him
+whistling as he went down the passage and felt easier in his mind.
+Renata and the babies paid their usual visit after tea, and Miss
+Charlotte, after a brief conversation with her uncle, slid off the
+sofa and trotted away to the end window, where she appeared to be
+diligently playing hide-and-seek with herself. Suddenly her elders
+were startled with a prolonged cry of anguish and Renata flew to the
+rescue.
+
+"I tan't find it; naughty mousie taken my booful golden penny," sobbed
+Charlotte in her mother's arms. Renata could make nothing of her grief
+and persisted in thinking that she was hurt, and cuddling her. Aymer,
+listening attentively, said suddenly to Renata in his imperious way:
+
+"Give Charlotte to me, Renata, and take baby away."
+
+Renata obeyed meekly. People had a weak way of obeying Aymer on
+occasions, even against their will.
+
+"Now, Miss Charlotte," said Aymer, when the young lady was safely
+deposited by him, "tell me about it. What golden penny was it?"
+
+But Charlotte got suddenly red and stopped crying.
+
+"Were you playing with it yesterday in the window?" asked her uncle.
+
+Charlotte nodded.
+
+"Was it your penny or mine?"
+
+"Wasn't nobody's, only mummy's. You _said they_ were for her.
+Charlotte wasn't naughty."
+
+"Did you find it on the floor?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where then?"
+
+"Dey was all in nice itty rows on the table. I only taken one pitty
+goldy penny. Mummy gives me goldy pennies always."
+
+"Sovereigns for playthings, Renata. That's very immoral."
+
+"No, only new halfpennies. Charlotte didn't know any better, Aymer."
+
+"And you played with it in the window there and left it there."
+
+"Is I naughty?"
+
+"Not very naughty--if you tell me. Did you leave it there?"
+
+Charlotte's lip trembled. "I putted it to bed in the curtain by a
+mousehole, and it's all gone, naughty mousie."
+
+"Go and see, Renata, if there's a hole there."
+
+"Please," said Charlotte gravely.
+
+"Please what?"
+
+"Please go and see."
+
+Aymer laughed. "I beg your pardon, Renata. Please will you mind
+looking for the mousehole?"
+
+"I tan't see the mousehole," put in Charlotte, "I only 'tend it."
+
+But Renata looked all the same. There was no mousehole and no golden
+penny.
+
+"It is all right," explained Aymer in answer to his sister-in-law's
+troubled look. "I know all about it. Don't worry your little head. We
+will give Charlotte another golden penny, or a silver one. Only," he
+added, regarding his small niece severely, "Charlotte must not touch
+anyone's pennies again, not mummy's or Uncle Aymer's, or anyone's. It
+is not dreadfully naughty this time, but it would be next
+time--_dreadfully_ naughty."
+
+Charlotte opened her eyes very wide.
+
+"Would you be dreffly angry?"
+
+"Yes, and very unhappy. I shouldn't let you come to see me any more."
+
+At that Miss Charlotte flung her arms round his neck, protesting she
+wasn't naughty and Uncle Aymer must love her. Peace was at last
+restored and Aymer drew pictures of innumerable mice carrying off
+golden pennies and only sent the children away when Christopher came
+in.
+
+He gave no hint to Christopher that he had solved the problem of the
+lost money and discovered the boy's own compromise between truth and
+dishonesty. He was anxious to see whether Christopher's moral standard
+was really satisfied with the same compromise or not. So he treated
+him as far as he could in his natural manner during the next few days,
+but found it a little difficult. Fond of Christopher as he was, this
+was just one of those points where the enormous difference between the
+child of one's own self,--of self plus the unknown--and the adopted
+child of others, became visible. The fault was so inexplicable to
+Aymer, so utterly foreign to his whole understanding, that he had
+nothing but contempt for it, whereas, had Christopher been his own
+son, love would have overridden contempt with fear.
+
+Christopher, with his uncanny, quick intuition of Aymer's innermost
+mind, was not deceived by his ordinary casual manner, and became, to
+Aymer's secret satisfaction, a little suppressed and thoughtful.
+
+It was at this point the boy had his first introduction to poor little
+Patricia's temper.
+
+The two children had been riding and returned home by way of the brook
+over which their ambitious dreams had already built a bridge.
+Patricia, who was in rather a petulant mood, reproached Christopher
+rather sharply for having got rid of his last month's pocket money so
+prematurely. "Just like a boy," she said, wrinkling her nose
+contemptuously. She had five whole shillings left of her money and
+when Christopher could double that they were to go to the brick-yard
+and bargain.
+
+"Haven't you any at all?" she questioned impatiently.
+
+Christopher, who was examining the proposed site, did not answer at
+once, and she repeated her question.
+
+"I have some," he confessed unwillingly.
+
+"Well, can't we start with that. You said you hadn't any on Monday.
+How much is it?"
+
+But Christopher declined to answer.
+
+Patricia persisted in her point. If Christopher had _any money_ they
+could begin the bridge next day. Christopher said he'd see about it.
+
+Patricia, much exasperated, said she should go home, and her companion
+proposed to make the ponies jump the brook. She was too angry to
+answer him, but she set her pony at it, and the pony, instead of
+rising to the jump on command, very cautiously stepped into the stream
+and splashed across. It is to be feared Christopher laughed. Patricia
+cantered on, having seen, with much satisfaction, the other pony
+behave in precisely the same way. But the end was not the same.
+Christopher wheeled the pony round and tried again, tried eight times
+and failed and succeeded at the ninth. It was characteristic of him
+that he did not lose his temper, but had kept on with a sort of dull,
+monotonous persistence that must have been very boring to the equine
+mind.
+
+Then he galloped after Patricia, and catching her up at the lodge
+gates retailed his triumph gleefully. Perhaps he was a shade too
+triumphant, for he was still in disgrace, and she had not spoken. At
+all events by the time they had dismounted and were returning to the
+house through the garden, she was in a fever of irritation, and
+Christopher, blissfully ignorant of the fact, was just a tiny bit
+inclined for private reasons of his own, to emphasise his own good
+spirits. He never noticed the clenching and unclenching of her small
+hands or saw the whiteness of her tense averted face, and he began
+teasing her about her pony and her weight. "Nevil must buy you a brand
+new one, up to your weight," he suggested, "you've broken Folly's
+spirit evidently."
+
+He was standing on the steps, just one step below her, and he looked
+back laughing. On a sudden, with no word or sound of warning, she
+turned and cut at him with her riding whip, her little form quivering
+with the grip of the possessing demon. The lash caught him across the
+face and he fell back against the wall gasping, with his hand up.
+Luckily it was but a light whip and a girl's hand, but the sting of it
+blanched him for an instant. The flaming colour died from Patricia's
+face as suddenly as it had come, and with it the momentary fury. She
+stood gazing at her companion a moment, and when he looked up half
+terrified, half angry, she turned quickly and ran down a grass path,
+dropping her whip as she went.
+
+Christopher stood still, rubbing his smarting cheek gingerly,
+wondering vaguely what he would say if it showed. He had heard from
+others as well as from Patricia herself, of the child's fearful
+paroxysms of rage and had rather scoffed at it--to her. But at this
+moment he was far nearer crying, very near it, indeed, to be strictly
+truthful. He was really concerned for Patricia, and also he was a
+little--unnecessarily--ashamed of his own collapse under the sudden
+attack. Probably she thought it worse than it was. He walked slowly
+down the grass path between the yew hedges and picked up the whip as
+he went. Patricia was not on the tennis court nor in the summer-house,
+nor in the rose-garden, so he turned his steps to the wilderness, as
+the rough wooded slopes on the northern side of the garden were
+called. He knew her favourite spots here and presently came on her
+huddled up on an old moss-grown stone seat, her head in her arms. She
+was quite still, she was not even crying, and Christopher felt a
+little frightened. What if she were still angry like that? However,
+the chances were against it, so he went up and sat down by her.
+
+"Patricia, don't be silly," he commanded. "What did you run off like
+that for? You didn't hurt--not much," he added truthfully--he had
+taken to being very exact about the truth of late.
+
+"Go away," said Patricia. "I don't want you. I don't want anyone. You
+don't understand."
+
+"Well, someone's got to understand," persisted the boy in a
+high-handed way. "You aren't going to be let get in tempers with me
+and then sulk about it afterwards. Don't be silly. Sit up." Patricia's
+golden hair lay about her like a veil. He pushed it aside and tried to
+pull her hands away from her face, for he was getting really a little
+frightened at her manner. Some instinct taught him that her misery was
+as exaggerated and bad for her as her temper, and he was dimly afraid
+of leaving her alone, as was the custom of her little world after one
+of her outbreaks.
+
+Patricia suddenly sat up. There were black rims round her great sad
+eyes already and her face was red and white in patches from the
+pressure of her hands.
+
+"You said I hadn't hurt you," she gasped, gazing at the dull red mark
+of which Christopher was already almost unaware.
+
+"Does it show? What a beastly nuisance. I said it didn't hurt much,
+Patricia. Not at all now. I'm sorry I was such a baby." He put his arm
+round her and she leant her head against him too exhausted to care
+whether he thought her a baby or not.
+
+"It must be jolly exciting having a temper like that," he said,
+thoughtfully. "It wouldn't be half so bad if you meant it."
+
+She sat bolt upright and stared at him.
+
+"Why?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"Because if you meant it you could take care _not_ to mean it, silly.
+You'd look out. But you don't mean it. You didn't mean to hurt me then
+till you did it. It's much worse for you."
+
+She drew a long breath.
+
+"Oh, Christopher dear, how clever you are. No-one ever understood that
+before. They all say, 'well, anyhow, you don't mean it,' as if that
+made it better."
+
+"Stupid, of course it's harder to help what you don't mean than what
+you do."
+
+"But I can't help it."
+
+Christopher gave her a little shake. "Don't be silly. You will have to
+help it, only it's harder. You can't go on like that when you are
+big--ladies don't--none I've seen. It's only----" he stopped.
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Women in the street. At least--some, I've seen them. They fight and
+scream and get black eyes and get drunk."
+
+"Christopher, you are hateful!" She flared up with hot cheeks and put
+her hand over his mouth. "I'm not like that, you horrid boy. Say I'm
+not."
+
+"I didn't say you were," said Christopher with faint exasperation. "I
+said it reminded me--your temper. Come along in."
+
+She followed very unwillingly, more conscious than he was of his
+disfigured face.
+
+And Renata met them in the hall and saw it and got pink, but said
+nothing till Patricia had gone upstairs. Christopher was slipping away
+too--he never found much to say to Mrs. Aston--and of late less than
+ever. However, she stopped him.
+
+"Have you been quarrelling, Christopher?" she asked deprecatingly with
+a little tremor in her voice.
+
+Christopher assured her not.
+
+"You have hurt your face."
+
+"The branch of a tree," he began shamefacedly, and stopped lamely.
+
+"I'm so sorry."
+
+No more was said. Renata was conscious of her own failure to get on
+with Christopher, but she put it down entirely to her own shyness,
+which interfered now in preventing her overriding his very transparent
+fib in Patricia's defence. She went away rather troubled and unhappy.
+But Christopher, a great deal more troubled and unhappy, looked out of
+the hall window with a gloomy frown. His own words to Patricia that
+she had so sharply resented, about the women he had seen fighting in
+the street, had called up other pictures of the older life, pictures
+in which Marley Sartin figured only too distinctly. He felt
+uncomfortably near these shifting scenes. Like Patricia, he wanted to
+deny the connection between himself and the small boy following in the
+wake of the big man through crowded streets and long vistas of shops.
+He did not wish to recognise the bond between little Jim Hibbault and
+Christopher Aston. But the pictures were very insistent and the
+likeness uncomfortably clear. At last, with no more show of emotion or
+will than if he were going on an ordinary errand, he walked slowly
+down the corridor to Caesar's room. He had entirely forgotten about
+Patricia now and was taken aback by Caesar's abrupt inquiry about the
+mark or his face.
+
+"It was an accident," he said hurriedly, and then plunged straight
+into his own affairs.
+
+"Caesar, I have something to give you."
+
+He held out his hand with a sovereign in it.
+
+Caesar took it and, after glancing at it casually, put it on the table,
+looking hard at Christopher, who got red and then white.
+
+"It couldn't have been the sovereign you lost," he said earnestly. "I
+didn't take any of that money, really, Caesar. I found this on the
+floor by the window. It couldn't have rolled all that long way from
+here. It must be another."
+
+He was pleading with himself as much as with Caesar, desiring greatly
+to keep faith with his own integrity, though something in Caesar's face
+was driving him from his last stronghold.
+
+"You didn't ask me if I'd found a sovereign," he pleaded desperately,
+"you asked me if I had taken one of Mrs. Aston's sovereigns, and I
+hadn't, because how could it have got to the window from here?"
+
+Caesar's face flushed a dusky red. He spoke in a hard, constrained
+voice.
+
+"Charlotte took one of the sovereigns as a plaything when we were not
+looking and hid it under the curtain in the window. To her it was only
+a toy, but to you----"
+
+He made a last effort to keep control of his temper and failed. The
+storm broke.
+
+"But to you----" he repeated with a curiously stinging quality in his
+voice as if the words were whipped to white heat by inward wrath--"to
+you a sovereign is no toy, but a useful commodity, and your code of
+honour--do you call it that?--is doubtless a very convenient one. It
+is far too subtle a code for my poor intellect, but since you appear
+able to justify it to yourself it is no concern of mine."
+
+Christopher stood still and white under this ruthless attack: all his
+energies concentrated in keeping that stillness, but at the back of
+his mind was born a dull pain and sharp wonder, a consciousness of the
+Law of Consequence by which he must abide, and henceforth accept as a
+principle of life. There was too great confusion in his mind for him
+to weigh his instinctive action and subsequent behaviour against what,
+to Aymer, was the one and only possible code of honour. For the
+present it was enough that in Aymer's eyes that action was mean,
+despicable and contemptible. The Law of Consequence he dimly realised
+worked from the centre of Aymer's being and not from the ill-trained
+centre of his, Christopher's, individuality.
+
+"In future," went on Aymer, still too furiously angry to weigh his
+words or remember they were addressed to a child, "if I have occasion
+to make any inquiries of you we will have a distinct understanding as
+to whether we are speaking with the same code or not. You can go."
+
+Christopher turned blindly away, and was stopped at the door. "As for
+the sovereign, which must be very precious to you, considering the
+price you were ready to pay for it, I will have it pierced and put on
+a chain, so you can wear it round your neck. It would be a pity to
+lose anything so valuable."
+
+Christopher turned with indignant protest in every line. However Aymer
+might talk of their separate codes of honour, he was, nevertheless,
+dealing out a punishment adequate to the infringement of his own code,
+and to Christopher it appeared unjust and cruel. For the moment it was
+in him to remonstrate fiercely, but the words died away, for such a
+protest must of necessity be based on an acceptance of this divided
+code, and to that he would not stoop. It was some poor consolation to
+pay the penalty of a higher law than he was supposed to understand. He
+turned again to the door and got away before a storm of tears swamped
+his brave control.
+
+When Charles Aston returned that night he found Aymer in a very
+irritable mood. Nevil, in his gentle, patient way, had been doing his
+best to soothe him, but in vain. When Aymer was not irritated, he was
+bitter and sarcastic, even his greeting to his father was short and
+cold. It was clear some event in the day had upset his mental
+equilibrium, and Christopher's absence (he did not even appear to say
+"good-night") gave Mr. Aston a clue to the situation.
+
+Nevil was wading through a book on farm management, which bored him
+considerably. His part was to read long extracts which Aymer was
+comparing with some letters in the "Field." They continued their
+employment and Mr. Aston sat down to write a letter. From time to time
+he paused and heard Aymer's sharp, unreasonable remarks to his
+brother. A memory of the old bad days came so forcibly to Mr. Aston
+that he laid aside his pen at last and sat listening with an aching
+heart. He knew those quick flashes of temper were a sign of irritation
+brought to a white heat. Presently, after one remark more
+unjustifiable than ever, Nevil looked across at his father with a
+little rueful grimace, and seeing how grave was Mr. Aston's expression
+he made another valiant effort to keep peace and ignore the abuse, and
+went on reading. The subject under discussion was the draining of a
+piece of waste land, and when the long article came to an end, Nevil
+in his dreamy way summed up the matter by saying it was a very
+picturesque corner of the estate and a pity to spoil it.
+
+Aymer flung the papers down violently.
+
+"That's all you care for, or are likely to care for," he said
+brutally. "I know I might as well let the estate go to the dogs as try
+and improve it. Once my father and I are dead, you'll turn it into a
+damned garden for your own use."
+
+For one second Nevil's face was a study in suppression. He got up and
+walked across the room, his hands shaking.
+
+Mr. Aston spoke sharply and suddenly.
+
+"Aymer, pull yourself together. You are taking advantage of your
+position. What circumstances do you imagine give you the right to
+trample on other people's feelings like this, whenever something or
+other has put you out? It's outrageous! Keep your temper better in
+hand, man."
+
+It was so obviously deserved, so terribly direct, and at the same time
+so calculated to hurt, that Nevil turned on his father with
+reproachful eyes, and then perceiving his face, said no more.
+
+Aymer became suddenly rigid, and lay still with waves of colour rising
+to and dying from his face, and his hands clenched.
+
+Mr. Aston waited a moment and then said apologetically and hurriedly,
+"I'm awfully sorry, Aymer."
+
+"Oh, it had to be done," responded Aymer, turning his face to him with
+a rueful smile. "I'm a brute. Nevil, old fellow, you ought to give him
+a V. C. or something; he is positively heroic."
+
+"Don't be an idiot," retorted his father, blushing for all his
+fifty-eight years, because of a grain of truth in his son's words. For
+indeed it sometimes requires more courage to be brutal to those we
+love than to be kind to those we hate.
+
+"Go away, Nevil," continued Mr. Aston good humouredly, "I'll look
+after Aymer."
+
+Nevil departed, with secret relief, the atmosphere was a little too
+electrical for his liking.
+
+When he had gone, Mr. Aston went over to his elder son and sat on the
+edge of the sofa.
+
+"What's really the matter, old chap?" he asked gently.
+
+Aymer related the whole history of the sovereign, Christopher's
+confession and the subsequent events.
+
+"I dare say he was quite honest about his point of view," he concluded
+petulantly, "but because I could not see it I lost my temper with
+him."
+
+His father sat thoughtfully considering the carpet.
+
+"It will be a little hard on Christopher," he said at length, very
+slowly and without looking up, "if every time he has the misfortune to
+remind you of his father you lose your temper with him."
+
+Aymer turned sharply.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"I think," went on the elder man steadily, "I think, Aymer, it was not
+only Christopher's hazy ideas of honour and honesty that angered you,
+but he forced on your notice the fact that he was his father's son,
+that he had in him the germs of that quality which has made his father
+what he is--a successful man. Isn't it so?"
+
+Aymer did not answer. It was true, he knew, however great his wish to
+disown it. Something of the self-dissatisfaction that had numbed poor
+little Christopher fell to his share. He felt his father was a little
+hard on him--he could not really understand his relationship to the
+boy.
+
+"It is not quite fair on Christopher, is it?" said Mr. Aston very
+gently, "at least that is how it strikes me. I do not want to
+interfere between you, but I do want you to do yourself full justice
+in dealing with him."
+
+Aymer looked suddenly up at his father and laughed. "It is evidently
+not only Christopher who is in disgrace to-day," he said ruefully. "I
+wish I could in turn upbraid you with unfairness, but Christopher has
+the pull over me there."
+
+He held out his hand. It was a great concession in Aymer to show even
+this much demonstration of feeling unasked, and it was appreciated.
+
+"You might say good-night to Christopher when you go upstairs," Aymer
+said casually a little later, and his father nodded assent, by no
+means deceived by the indifferent tone. Both Aymer and Christopher
+slept the better for his ministrations that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+At the end of February the elder Astons returned to town and Marden
+Court was no longer mere vague locality to Christopher, but the "home"
+of those he loved, the centre piece of their lives, and he had a share
+in it himself.
+
+Still he was very happy to find himself back at Aston House. Its many
+deserted rooms, the long, silent corridors and its strange spacious
+emptiness lent themselves to his robust imagination more easily than
+the living friendly warmth of the old house, brimful of actualities.
+He re-explored every corner of house and garden in the first days of
+return, interviewed the staff collectively and individually, from
+Warren the butler, to the new scullery boy. He rearranged his books
+and hunted up half-forgotten treasures, slid down the shiny banisters
+fifty times a day and dispelled the silent lurking shadows with a
+merry whistle and a laugh that woke an echo in quiet rooms. But he
+regretted Patricia. It would have been very pleasant to take his turn
+at showing her round--Patricia had only been in London once,--and
+there would have been plenty to show her. Lessons, however,
+recommenced almost at once and Christopher was left with little time
+for regrets. Life fell back into its old grooves with the solitary
+difference that those grooves seemed deeper worn and more familiar
+than he had imagined. The months no longer only presented possible
+problems; he could consult his memory as to what had previously been
+at such a time or in like conditions.
+
+He was also given much greater liberty now and encouraged to go out by
+himself, and to do errands for Mr. Aston or Aymer. It was a proud day
+for him when Aymer first sent him to The House with a letter for Mr.
+Aston, who was acting secretary on a Committee at the time.
+Christopher had had to wait and had sat outside a Committee room door
+and watched men go to and fro, men whose faces were dimly familiar to
+a student of illustrated papers, and men who were strange, but all men
+doing something in return for the good things the world had given
+them. Such at least was Christopher's innocent belief. Aymer did not
+disillusion him.
+
+He used to recount his small adventures to Caesar in the evenings and
+was encouraged to form his own conclusions from what he had noticed
+and to confirm existing ideas from actual life. Such conclusions and
+ideas were naturally often childish and illogical, but Caesar never
+appeared to find them laughable and would give careful and
+illuminating consideration to the most chaotic theories.
+
+The everlasting problem of riches and poverty, happiness and misery
+often came uppermost, and on this point Christopher was assuredly, but
+quite unconsciously, as illuminating to Aymer as Aymer was to him.
+There were certain points of view, certain lines of thought with
+regard to the attitude of these "under-world" people, which
+Christopher knew without knowing how, and which, flashing out
+unexpectedly, would dissolve philanthropic theories wholesale. Aymer
+would retell them to his father afterwards, who in turn would bring
+them out in his quiet, unexpected way in one of those wonderfully
+eloquent speeches of his that made the whole list of "Societies" court
+him as a dinner guest and speaker, and political coteries sigh with
+pained surprise at his refusal to stand for Parliament.
+
+Christopher, indeed, possessed to a full degree the power of absorbing
+the mental atmosphere in which he lived and of becoming a sort of
+visible incarnation of it. Places and people who had thus once found
+expression in him could always bring to the surface again that
+particular phase of existence they had originally stamped on his mind.
+The Christopher who wandered amongst the wharfs and warehouses in that
+vague region across the river, remembered and was concerned over quite
+different matters to the happy boy who rode every morning in the Row
+with Mr. Aston.
+
+There were many people to and fro to Aston House: Men who were a power
+in the world; men who would be so, and men who had been, as well as
+many of no note at all. They came to consult Charles Aston on every
+conceivable thing under the sun, from questions of high politics to
+the management of a refractory son. They did not always take his
+advice, nor did he always offer it, but they invariably came away with
+a more definite sense of their own meaning and aims, and somehow such
+aims were generally a little more just, a shade more honest, or a
+little higher than they had imagined when they started out. Charles
+Aston was still alluded to by men of high repute as "the man who might
+have been," yet many there were who, had they considered it carefully,
+might have said to themselves that "might have been" was less well
+than "has been." Very occasionally he entertained and Constantia came
+to play hostess for him. On these occasions Aymer rarely appeared at
+dinner, but a few privileged guests visited him afterwards and kept
+alive the tradition that Charles Aston's son, that poor fellow Aymer,
+was an even more brilliant conversationalist and keener wit than his
+father. But as a rule very few from the outside penetrated as far as
+the Garden Wing of Aston House, and Aymer and Christopher continued to
+lead a peaceful and uninterrupted existence there.
+
+Christopher continued to occupy his leisure with a prodigious number
+of pets and the construction of mechanical contrivances for their
+convenience, in which he showed no little ingenuity. There were
+occasionally tragedies in connection with the pets which were turned
+to good account by the master of their fate even at the expense of his
+own feelings--and fingers--as on the occasion when he cremated a
+puppy-dog who had come to an untimely end. Caesar objected to this
+experiment, and when the next catastrophe occurred, which was to a
+guinea-pig, a more commonplace funeral had to be organised.
+
+But this tragedy became curiously enough linked with a new memory in
+Christopher's mind, of more lasting importance than the demise of "Sir
+Joshua Reynolds" of the brown spots.
+
+It happened this-wise. Sir Joshua having stolen a joyous but unsafe
+hour of liberty fell a victim to the cunning of the feline race.
+Christopher rescued the corpse and heaped tearful threats of vengeance
+on the murderess, and then tore into Caesar's room to find sympathy and
+comfort. He tumbled in at the window with Sir Joshua in his arms, and
+flung himself on Caesar before he had observed the presence of a
+visitor--a stranger, too. He was a big, florid man, with a
+good-natured face and great square chin, and he was standing with his
+back to the fire, looking very much at home. He gave a slight start as
+Christopher tumbled in, and a queer little cynical smile dawned on his
+face as he watched the two.
+
+"Hallo, Aymer, I didn't know you had----"
+
+"Go and get ready for tea, Christopher," interrupted Aymer
+peremptorily, "and take out that animal. Don't you see I have a
+visitor?"
+
+Christopher, who had just perceived the stranger, hardly disguised his
+lack of appreciation of so inopportune a caller, and went out to see
+what consolation could be got out of Vespasian. When he returned,
+tidy and clean, even to Vespasian's satisfaction, he found the two men
+talking hard and slipped quietly into his seat behind the little
+tea-table hoping to be unobserved; but Caesar called him out of it.
+
+"Peter," he said, "let me present my adopted son to you. Christopher,
+shake hands with Mr. Masters."
+
+The big man and the small boy looked at each other gravely, and then
+Christopher extended his hand. Aymer looked out of the window and
+apparently took no notice of them.
+
+"How do you do, sir?"
+
+"What's your name besides Christopher?" demanded the visitor. He had
+queer, light blue, piercing eyes that were curiously unexpressive and
+looked through one to the back of one's head, but, unlike Mr. Aston's
+kind, steady gaze, that invited one to open one's soul to it, the
+immediate impulse here was to pull down the blinds of one's
+individuality in hasty self-defence, and realise, even in doing it,
+that it was too late.
+
+"Aston," said Christopher, rather hastily, escaping to the tea-table.
+
+Peter Masters looked from him to Aymer with the same queer smile.
+
+"Good-looking boy, Aymer," he said carelessly. "You call him Aston?"
+
+"We've given him our own name," said Aymer steadily, "because it saves
+complications and explanations."
+
+"A very wise precaution. What are you going to do with him
+eventually?"
+
+"I hardly know yet. What were you saying about the strike?"
+
+They fell to discussing a recent labour trouble in the Midlands, and
+Christopher gathered a hazy notion that their visitor employed vast
+numbers of men who were not particularly fond of him, and for whom he
+had not only no affection, but no sort of feeling whatever, except as
+instruments of his will.
+
+Christopher was very glad he was not one of them; he felt rather
+hostile to the big, careless, opulent man who spoke to Aymer with a
+familiarity that Christopher resented and had already apparently
+forgotten his own small existence.
+
+The forget was but apparent, however, for presently he turned sharply
+to the boy and asked him if he had ever been down a coal mine.
+Christopher, putting control on his own hot curiosity to explore the
+subject, answered that he had not, and gave Mr. Masters his second cup
+of tea without any sugar to emphasise his own indifference to the
+questioner, who unfortunately never noticed the omission, but drank
+his tea with equal satisfaction.
+
+"Ever been over an iron foundry?" persisted Mr. Masters, with the same
+scrutinising gaze.
+
+Caesar was playing with his favourite long tortoise-shell paper-knife;
+he seemed unusually indifferent to Christopher's manners, nor did he
+intervene to save him from the string of sharp questions that ensued.
+
+Christopher made effort to answer the questioner with ordinary
+politeness, but he was not communicative, and Mr. Masters presently
+leant back in his chair and laughed.
+
+"Young man, you'll get on in the world," he said approvingly, "for
+you've learnt the great secret of keeping your own counsel. I prophesy
+you'll be a successful man some day."
+
+Christopher was not at all elated at the prospect. He was wondering
+why Aymer drank no tea, also wondering how long the visitor meant to
+stay. There seemed no sign of departing in him, so Christopher asked
+if he might go and bury the guinea-pig with Vespasian's help. Aymer
+nodded permission without speaking.
+
+"A cute lad," remarked Mr. Masters; "what are you going to do with
+him?"
+
+"I do not know yet."
+
+"Put him in the iron trade. 'Prentice him to me. There's something in
+him. Did you say you didn't know who his father was?" He shot one of
+his quick glances at Aymer.
+
+The tortoise-shell paper-knife snapped in two. Aymer fitted the ends
+together neatly.
+
+"No, I didn't," he answered very deliberately. "I told you he was my
+adopted son. I adopted him in order to have something to do."
+
+"Oh, yes. Of course, of course." A slow smile spread over his big
+face. "Think of Aymer Aston of all men in the world playing at being a
+family man!"
+
+He leant back in his chair and laughed out his great hearty laugh
+whose boyish ring, coupled with the laugher's easy careless manners,
+had snared so many fish into the financial net.
+
+"They'd like to make a family man of me again--do their dear little
+best--but I'm not such a fool as they think me. Men with brains and
+ambitions don't want a wife. You miss less than you think, old chap,"
+he went on with the colossal tactlessness habitual to him when his own
+interests were not at stake; "a wife plays the devil with one's
+business. I _know_." He nodded gloomily, the smile lost under a heavy
+frown.
+
+Aymer put down very carefully the broken toy he had been playing with.
+Peter's elephantine tread was so great that it had almost overstepped
+its victim. At all events Aymer gave no outward sign that he felt it
+except in his deepened colour and a faint straightening of the lips.
+
+"What on earth do you do with yourself?" went on Peter thoughtfully;
+"the care of a kid like that doesn't absorb all your brains, I
+know."
+
+"What would you recommend me to do?" asked Aymer quietly.
+
+"With your head for figures and your leisure you should take to the
+Market. Have a machine and tapes fitted up in reach, and, by Jove! in
+a quiet spot like this, out of the way of other men's panics and
+nonsense, you could rule the world."
+
+"The Market, I think you said."
+
+"Same thing. Think of it, Aymer," he went on eagerly and genuinely
+interested in his proposition, whether spontaneous or not. He began
+walking up and down the room, working out his idea with that grasp of
+detail that had made him the millionaire he was.
+
+"You could have the instruments and a private wire fixed up along the
+wall there, and your sofa by them. A clerk over there: it would be a
+sort of companion. You've plenty of capital to start with, and
+wouldn't have to lose your head at the first wrong deal. Of course
+you'd want someone the other end, a figurehead and mouthpiece, and
+someone to show you the lines, start you off; I'd be pleased to do it.
+We could make a partnership concern of it, if you liked."
+
+There was a quick sidelong glint in his eyes towards Aymer as he came
+to a stand near the sofa.
+
+"What particular results would you expect?" inquired Aymer, knowing
+the only plan to keep the enthusiast at bay was to humour him.
+
+"Why, man, you might be the greatest power in the world--you--the
+unseen, unknown, mysterious Brain--you would have time--you would
+escape the crazy influences that ruin half the men 'on 'Change'--and
+you've got the head for it. Calculation, nerve, everything. It would
+be just the thing for you. You'd forget all about not being able to
+walk in a week. I wonder why none of us have thought of it before."
+
+"I'm getting used to it after twelve years," said Aymer, with shut
+teeth; "the objection to your scheme is that I do not happen to want
+money."
+
+"Power, power, man," cried the other impatiently. "Money is just
+metal, its value lies in the grip it gives you over other men, and if
+you don't even care for that, there's the joy of chancing it. And you
+were a born gambler, Aymer, you can't deny that," he laughed heartily,
+but also again came the quick sidelong glint of his eyes. "Think of
+it, old fellow," he said carelessly, dropping his enthusiastic tone,
+"it would be a good deal better for you than doing nothing. It's such
+wicked waste."
+
+For the first time Aymer winced.
+
+"I'll think of it, and let you know if it's likely to be entertained.
+I have the boy, you know; that gives me something to do."
+
+"Poof! Let him bring himself up if you want to make a successful man
+of him. The more he educates himself, the better he'll get on. If you
+do it, you'll make him soft. _I_ know! Public School: University:
+Examinations, and L200 a year if he's lucky. That's your education!
+All very well if you are born with a golden spoon in your mouth
+and can afford to be a fool. If you can't, better learn to
+rough-and-tumble it in the world. Education doesn't make successful
+men."
+
+"You were not exactly uneducated, Peter," said Aymer drily.
+
+Peter grinned.
+
+"Ah, but I was a genius. I couldn't help it. It would have been the
+same had I been born in the gutter. No, I believe in the
+rough-and-tumble school to make hard-headed men."
+
+"Well, for all you know, Christopher may be a genius, or be born with
+a golden spoon in his mouth."
+
+The other looked up sharply.
+
+"Nevil has a boy of his own, hasn't he?"
+
+"Don't be a fool if you can help it, Peter. Other people have golden
+spoons besides the gilded Aston family."
+
+Peter shrugged his shoulders. "It's no business of mine, of course,
+but the boy looks sharp. Pity to spoil him. Ha, Ha. I don't spoil
+mine."
+
+He got up yawning and sauntered over to the fireplace and so did not
+see Aymer's rigid face go white and then red.
+
+"I've got a boy--I think it's a boy--somewhere. Daresay you've
+forgotten. You weren't very sociable, poor old chap, when it happened.
+About a year after your accident. He's about somewhere or other. Oh, I
+back my own theories! I don't suppose he's a genius, so the
+rough-and-tumble school for _him_."
+
+"You know the school?"
+
+"I can put my hand on him when I want to--that's not yet. The world
+can educate him till I'm ready to step in."
+
+"If he'll have you."
+
+Peter chuckled. "He won't be a fool--even if he's not a genius. Well,
+you think of my proposition, I'll go halves."
+
+"How you have disappointed me, Peter. I thought you called from a
+disinterested desire to see me after all these years."
+
+"Twelve years, isn't it? Well, you look better than you did then. I
+didn't think you would come through--didn't think you meant to. I'm
+sorry to miss Cousin Charles. He doesn't approve of me, but he's too
+polite to say so, even in a letter. How does he wear?"
+
+"Well, on the whole. He works too hard."
+
+The other spread out his hands.
+
+"Works. And to what end? I'm glad to have seen you again. It's like
+old times, if you weren't on that beastly sofa, poor old chap."
+
+"Perhaps you will call again when father is in," said Aymer steadily,
+with a mute wonder if a square inch of him was left unbruised.
+
+"To tell the truth, I'm rarely in London. I work from Birmingham and
+New York, and calling is an expensive amusement to a busy man."
+
+"Produces nothing?"
+
+"Yes, a good deal of pleasure. It's worth it occasionally."
+
+He stood over his cousin, looking down at him with quite genuine
+concern and liking in his eyes. His size, his aggressiveness, his
+blundering disregard of decency towards trouble, everything about him
+was on such a gigantic scale that one could not weigh him by any
+accepted standard. Aymer knew it, and notwithstanding Peter's unique
+powers of hurting him to the soul, he made no attempt to scale him,
+but met him on his own ground and ignored the torture.
+
+"What has it cost you exactly, this visit?"
+
+Peter considered quite gravely.
+
+"Let me see. I was to have seen Tomlands. He's ceding his rights in
+the Lodal Valley Affair and his figure goes up each day." He
+considered again. "Three thousand," he answered with a wide grin.
+
+"I am abashed at my value," said Aymer gravely. "I daren't ask you to
+come again now."
+
+"Oh, I'll have an extravagant fit again, some day. Where's the boy?"
+His hand was in his pocket and Aymer heard the chink of coin.
+
+"At work, or should be. Don't tip him, please, Peter. He has as much
+as he needs."
+
+"How do you know? A boy needs as much as he can get. Well, don't
+forget my advice. Don't educate him."
+
+He was gone at last. Presumably to gather in the Lodal Rights before
+their value further increased.
+
+Charles Aston did not betray any particular sorrow at missing the
+visitor.
+
+"It's rather odd his turning up again now after forgetting our
+existence so long," he remarked, frowning. "Of course we've had
+correspondence--not very agreeable either."
+
+"I can hardly wonder at his not coming to see me, at all events. It's
+nearly twelve years since we met, and I wasn't very polite to him that
+time," said Aymer wearily.
+
+"There was a reasonable excuse for you."
+
+"I'm afraid I did not consider reason much in those days, sir. If he'd
+been a saint in disguise I should have behaved like a brute just the
+same."
+
+Charles Aston came and stood looking down with a kind, quiet,
+satisfied smile. The attitude was the same as Peter Masters' and
+Aymer, remembering it, smiled too.
+
+"What did he really want, Aymer? He never came for nothing."
+
+"To induce me to go on the Stock-Exchange in partnership with him, I
+think. Thought it would be less boring than lying here all day with
+nothing to do."
+
+Charles Aston opened his mouth to protest and shut it resolutely,
+turned and walked down the room ruffling his hair, so that when he
+went back to Aymer, his iron-grey thatch was more picturesque than
+neat.
+
+Aymer laughed.
+
+"Who's lost his temper now?" he demanded.
+
+His father looked in a glass and, perceiving the devastation,
+attempted to remedy it.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," he said with much contrition, "but I can't keep
+my temper over Peter. Has he improved?"
+
+"Not a bit. He doesn't hurt, father, he's too big," he paused a
+moment, "he saw Christopher."
+
+Mr. Aston gave Aymer a scrutinising glance.
+
+"It was unavoidable, I suppose."
+
+"I did not try to stop it."
+
+"And the result?"
+
+"There was no result except he appeared impressed with his mental
+capacity."
+
+Mr. Aston ruffled his hair again in a perturbed manner.
+
+"Didn't he see his likeness to his mother, Aymer?"
+
+"Apparently not. It's not so strong as it was. He offered me advice on
+his upbringing."
+
+"Did he?" with an indignant shake of the head.
+
+"All in good faith," said Aymer steadily, "he said he didn't approve
+of education; as a proof of his sincerity, he cited the line he was
+taking with his own boy."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"He said he could put his hand on him when he liked." Aymer's voice
+was quite level and inexpressive, but his father leant forward and put
+his hand on his, saying hastily.
+
+"He always says that. He believes it just a matter of money. It was
+his one answer to all my remonstrances. When he wanted him he could
+find him--not before. Aymer, I wish I'd been at home. Why did you see
+him?"
+
+"I could hardly refuse; it would have been churlish--unpolitic. I did
+not know why he came. He was evidently struck with Christopher."
+
+He laughed a little unsteadily, but his father smothered a sigh and
+watched him with curious solicitude. The unwritten law that
+Christopher had learnt so well had been very heavily infringed, and
+Charles Aston had no liking for the man who had infringed it, though
+he was his first cousin.
+
+He was weighing in his mind what his son must have suffered in that
+interview, and trying to see if it could have been foreseen and
+prevented.
+
+Peter and Aymer, who was only five years his junior, had been great
+friends in the far-off days before the tragedy, but the former was too
+nearly, though half unconsciously, connected with that to be a
+possible intimate for Aymer now. The possibility of his turning up in
+this casual manner, ignoring with ruthless amiability all that had
+passed, had really never occurred to either father or son, and they
+were both unprepared for a narrowly escaped crisis. But Aymer was
+evidently not going to own frankly how great had been the strain and
+how badly he had suffered under it. He set his pride to heal his
+bruised feelings, however, applauding himself secretly for not
+betraying to his cousin the torture to which he had unintentionally
+put him. But he could not, having done this, altogether put it from
+him, and the subject of Peter Masters cropped up next morning when
+Christopher was sitting on the edge of Caesar's bed.
+
+Aymer asked him abruptly what he thought of the visitor of the
+previous day.
+
+"I don't like him at all. I think he's beastly," was Master
+Christopher's emphatic verdict.
+
+"He is my second cousin, his mother was an Aston, and he is one of the
+richest men in England, if not quite the richest. He is thought rich
+even in America."
+
+"And horrid, too, just the same: only perhaps I oughtn't to say so as
+he is your cousin," added the boy with sudden confusion.
+
+Aymer regarded him with an introspective air.
+
+"He is a strange man, though many people don't like him. We were great
+friends once."
+
+Christopher opened his eyes very wide.
+
+"_You_--and Mr. Masters?"
+
+"Yes--when I was a young man like others. We quarrelled--or rather I
+quarrelled--he came to see me when I was first--ill," he jerked the
+word out awkwardly, but never took his eyes from Christopher's face.
+"I was perfectly brutal to him. That's twelve years ago. Most men
+would never have spoken to me again, but he doesn't bear malice."
+
+"He wouldn't mind what anyone said to him," persisted Christopher;
+"fancy your being friends!"
+
+"You like me best then?"
+
+Master Christopher caught up a pillow and hurled it at him, and then
+made a violent effort to smother him under it.
+
+"I think you're almost as nasty--when you say things like that,
+Caesar."
+
+"Then retreat from my company and tell Vespasian his baby is waiting
+to be dressed."
+
+Vespasian found his master in one of his rare inconsequent moods,
+talking nonsense with provoking persistence and exercising his wits in
+teasing everyone who came in his way.
+
+Vespasian smiled indulgently and spent his leisure that day in
+assisting Christopher to construct a man-of-war out of empty biscuit
+boxes and cotton reels, for he was dimly possessed of the idea that
+the boy was in some way connected with his master's unusually good
+spirits.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+It was not until Christopher had passed his fourteenth birthday that
+he came face to face once more with the distant past. He had crossed
+Westminster Bridge to watch the trams on the other side, and from
+there, being in an adventurous mood, he had wandered out into vague
+regions lying beyond, regions of vast warehouses, of narrow, dirty
+streets and squalid houses, of sudden palaces of commerce towering
+over the low tide of mean roofs. Suddenly turning a corner, he had
+come on a block of "model dwellings," and an inrush of memories
+brought him to a standstill before the giant ugly pile.
+
+There, on the topmost floor of the east corner of Block D, had lived
+Martha Sartin, and Marley Sartin, packer at one of the big warehouses
+near, also Jessie Sartin and numerous other Sartins, including Sam,
+who was about Christopher's age; there in the dull asphalt court Sam
+and Christopher had played, and up that steep stairway had climbed in
+obedience to husky shouts from over the iron railings of the top
+landing.
+
+It was all so vivid, so unaltered, so sharply set in Christopher's
+mind that he had to look down at his own immaculate blue suit and
+unpatched boots to reassure himself he was not waiting for Martha's
+shrill order to "come up out of the dirt." But assured once more of
+his own present personality he could not resist exploring further, and
+went right up to the foot of the iron staircase and looked up. It was
+all just as sordid and dirty and unlovely as ever, though he had not
+known before the measure of its undesirableness. Leaning over the
+railing of the top landing was an untidy-looking woman in a brown
+skirt and half-fastened blouse. She looked over into the yard and
+shouted in a voice that made Christopher jump.
+
+"Jim, come up out of the dirt, you little varmint!"
+
+And Christopher, erstwhile Jim, leant against the wall and felt his
+head was whirling round. Then he inspected himself again, but at that
+moment a shock-headed dirty mite of four years brushed past him and
+began to clamber up the stairs, pushing his way through the horde of
+small babies on each landing and squealing shrilly, "I'm coming,
+Mammie."
+
+Christopher went too. He could not possibly have resisted the impulse,
+for assuredly it was Martha's voice that called--called him back willy
+nilly to the past that after all was not so far past except in a boy's
+measure of time.
+
+A dark-eyed, decent-looking woman passed him on the stair and looked
+at him curiously; further on a man, smoking a pipe, took the trouble
+to follow him to the next floor in a loafing fashion. The small Jim,
+out of breath and panting with the exertion of the climb, was being
+roughly dusted by an undoubted Martha when Christopher reached the
+topmost landing. She was stouter than of yore, and her hair was no
+longer done up in iron curlers as of old, also a baby, younger than
+Jim, was crawling out of the room on the right. But it was Martha
+Sartin, and Christopher advanced a friendly hand.
+
+Mrs. Sartin gazed at the apparition with blank amazement. She could
+connect the tall, pleasant-faced boy in his spotless suit and straw
+hat with nothing in her memory. He did not look as if he could belong
+to the theatre at which she was a dresser, but it seemed the only
+solution.
+
+"Are you come from Miss Vassour?" she asked doubtfully.
+
+"Don't you know me, Mrs. Sartin?"
+
+"Know ye? No. How should I?"
+
+"I'm Jim Hibbault."
+
+"Garn!"
+
+"Yes, I am really." Poor Christopher began to feel embarrassed and a
+little disappointed.
+
+He _was_ Jim Hibbault at that moment and he felt queerly lonely and
+stranded.
+
+Martha pulled down her sleeves and went to the inner door.
+
+"Jessie, come out 'ere," she screamed.
+
+Christopher felt his heart go thump. He had almost forgotten Jessie,
+yet Jessie had been more to him than Martha in other days. It was
+Jessie who had taken him for walks, carried him up the steep stairs on
+her back, shared sweets with him, cuffed her brother Sam when they
+fought, and had finally taken little Jim Hibbault back to his mother
+when the great clock in the distance struck six,--Jessie, who at
+eleven had been a complete little mother and was at sixteen a tall,
+lanky, untidy girl who had inherited the curling pins of her mother
+and whose good-natured, not ill-looking face was not improved
+thereby.
+
+She came to the doorway and stood looking over her mother's arm at
+Christopher.
+
+"Ever seed 'im afore?" demanded Mrs. Sartin.
+
+"Well I never, if it ain't Jimmy!" cried Jessie, beaming, and
+Christopher could have embraced her if it were in accordance with the
+custom of his years, and he felt less inclined to bolt down the stairs
+out of reach of his adventure.
+
+Neither of the two women expressed any pleasure at his appearance.
+Mrs. Sartin accepted her daughter's recognition of their visitor as
+sufficient evidence it was not a hoax, and asked Christopher in.
+
+The room, though the window was open, smelt just as stuffy as of old,
+and a familiar litter of toys and odds and ends strewed the floor.
+Christopher missed the big tea-tray and Britannia metal teapot, but
+the sofa with broken springs was still there, covered as it had ever
+been with the greater part of the family wardrobe.
+
+Christopher sat in the armchair, and Mrs. Sartin, having plumped the
+baby into its chair, sat down by the door. The small Jimmy pulled at
+her apron. Jessie leant against the wall and giggled. No one said
+anything. Christopher began to wish he had not come.
+
+"I never could remember the name of this place," he began at last,
+desperately. "I just came on it by accident to-day, and remembered
+everything all at once."
+
+"Shilla Buildings, that's what it's called," said Mrs. Sartin nodding
+her head. "Block 7, C. Door."
+
+Silence again. A strict sense of etiquette prevented either of the
+feminine side of the company from uttering the question burning on
+their tongues.
+
+"I did see Sam once, a long time ago," Christopher struggled on, "but
+I could not catch him." He got red and embarrassed again.
+
+"'Ows your Ma?" asked Mrs. Sartin at last.
+
+"She's dead," explained Christopher very gravely, "five years ago
+now--more."
+
+"Lor'. To think of it. I never thought she was one to live long. And
+she went back to her friends after all, I suppose."
+
+It was not a question: it was only a statement to be confirmed or
+contradicted or ignored as the hearer liked.
+
+"She died in the Union at Whitmansworth," said Christopher bluntly. "I
+lived there afterwards and then someone adopted me. Mr. Aymer Aston,
+son of Mr. Aston. Perhaps you know the name."
+
+Mrs. Sartin appeared to consult an imaginary visiting list.
+
+"No, I can't say as I do. Do you, Jessie?"
+
+Jessie shook her head. She had ceased to look at their visitor;
+instead, she looked at his boots, and her cheeks grew red.
+
+"I thought I would like to see if you were still here."
+
+"Very good of you, I'm sure." It was not meant ironically, it was
+solely addressed to the blue suit and brown boots, but it nearly
+reduced the wearer of these awe-inspiring clothes to tears.
+
+For the moment, in the clutch of the past, with associations laying
+gripping hands on him and with his curious faculty of responding to
+the outward call, Aston House and the Astons became suddenly a faint
+blurred impression to Christopher, less real and tangible than these
+worn, sordid surroundings. Had anyone just then demanded his name he
+would undoubtedly have responded "Hibbault." He felt confused and
+wretched, alive to the fact that little Jim Hibbault had neither
+people nor home nor relations in the world, if these once kindly women
+had no welcome for him.
+
+"I heard you call Jim," he hazarded at last, in an extremity of
+disconcerted shyness.
+
+Mrs. Sartin eyed the four-year-old nestling in her apron and pulled
+him from cover.
+
+"Yes, that be Jim. We called 'im Jim arter you. He was born arter you
+an' your ma went away."
+
+He longed to ask after Marley of unhappy memory, but the possibilities
+were too apparent for him to venture, so silence again fell over
+them.
+
+At this precise juncture of affairs a shrill whistle was heard
+ascending the stairway, growing momentarily louder and louder till it
+became earsplitting in intensity as it arrived on landing No. 6. The
+author of it pulled open the door and the whistle tailed off into a
+faint "phew" at sight of the embarrassed group. The new-comer was a
+thin-faced lad with light sandy hair cropped close to his square
+head. He had light, undetermined eyes that were keen and lively.
+Christopher had beaten him in the matter of size, but there were
+latent possibilities in his ill-developed form.
+
+Christopher sprang up and rushed forward, then suddenly stopped.
+
+"Ullo, mother, didn't know as 'ow you 'ad swell company this
+arternoon. I'd 'ave put on my best suit and topper," he grinned
+affably as he deposited on the floor a big basket he carried.
+
+"Oh, I say, Sam--don't you know me either?" began poor Christopher.
+
+He wheeled round, stared hard, and a broad smile of recognition spread
+over his face.
+
+"Why, if it ain't Jim," he cried and seized his hand with a fervour
+that set Christopher aglowing and strangely enough set him free from
+the clinging shadow of his lost identity. _This_ was tangible flesh
+and blood and of the real authentic present.
+
+"Well, I'm blowed," ejaculated Sam, stepping back to look at his
+erstwhile companion, "to think of you turning up again such a toff. No
+need to ask what sort of luck came _your_ way. My. Ain't 'e a swell,
+just."
+
+But unlike the women, he was unabashed by externals. He demanded "tea"
+of his mother that very moment, "cos 'e 'adn't no time for dinner and
+'is bloke 'ad sent 'im round to get a bit o' somethink now," at a
+slack hour.
+
+"Greengrocer business, Clare Street," he explained. "Seven shillings a
+week. Not a bad old cove. What d'yer say about yourself?"
+
+He had the whole history out of Christopher in five minutes.
+
+The women listened and flung in "Well, I never's," and "Who'd 'ave
+thought it's" from time to time and thawed into ordinary human beings
+under Sam's convivial example. In the end Sam offered sincere if
+oddly-expressed congratulations, and disappeared into the back kitchen
+to wash his hands. Jessie, too, vanished mysteriously, eventually
+returning minus the curling pins and plus a row of impossible curls
+and a bright blue blouse bedecked with cheap lace. Mrs. Sartin
+meanwhile tidied up by kicking the scattered toys under the sofa.
+
+"Them sisters what looks arter the poor is always givin' broken
+rubbish to the children," she exclaimed. "Not but what they mean it
+kindly, but it makes a heap of muck to clear up."
+
+Christopher nodded his head comprehendingly, by no means so hurt at
+her ingratitude as a real Christopher Aston might have been.
+
+The good woman bustled about, and eventually the family drew up round
+the tea table. The cloth might have been cleaner, the cups and saucers
+have borne a longer acquaintance with water, and there was a spoon
+short, though no one was so ill-mannered as to allude to it. Jessie
+unobtrusively shared hers with her mother under cover of the big
+tea-pot. There was bread and a yellow compound politely alluded to as
+butter, and a big pot of jam. The younger Sartins gorged silently on
+this, all unreproved by a preoccupied mother. Mrs. Sartin, indeed,
+became quite voluble and told Christopher how she was now first
+dresser at the Kings Theatre and how Jessie was just taken on in the
+wardrobe room.
+
+"Which is uncertain _hours_," Mrs. Sartin explained, "but it's nice to
+be together in the same 'ouse, and one couldn't want a kinder
+gentleman than Mr. X. to do with. I've been there ten years and never
+'ad a cross word with 'im. And 'e was that good when Marley was took,
+and never turned me off as some of 'em do." She stopped suddenly under
+the stress of Sam's lowering countenance. Jessie hastily passed her
+bread, "which I thanks you for, but will say what I was a-goin' to,
+for all Sam's kicks under the table," continued the hostess, defiantly
+regarding her confused offspring.
+
+The confusion spread to Christopher, who looked at his plate and got
+red. Sam pushed back his chair; there was a very ugly scowl on his
+face. His undaunted mother addressed herself to their guest.
+
+"No woman ever 'ad a better 'usband than Marley, though I ses it, but
+Sam here 's that 'ard 'e won't let me speak of my own man if 'e can
+'elp 'it. 'Is own father, too. Ah, if 'e 'ad 'ad a bad father, Sam
+would 'ave know what to be thankful for."
+
+"I'm thankful 'e's gone," burst out Sam, with sudden anger. "I asks
+you, 'ow's a cove to get on when he's 'itched up to a father wot's
+done time? Why, old Greenum gave me a shillin' a week less than 'e
+ought, cos why, 'e knew I couldn't 'old out with a father like that,"
+and he eyed his mother wrathfully.
+
+"A better 'usband no woman 'ad," sobbed Mrs. Sartin. "When 'e came out
+'e didn't seem to get no chance and so...."
+
+"Is he in London?" asked Christopher, nervously gulping down some
+tea.
+
+"No--sloped," said Sam, shortly, "cribbed some other chap's papers I
+guess--went abroad--we don't know--don't want to, either."
+
+The fierce hostility and resentment in the boy's voice made it clear
+to Christopher this was evidently a subject better dropped. He seized
+the chance of directing Jessie's attention to Master Jim Sartin, who
+was brandishing the bread-knife, and plunged hastily into a
+description of the doings of Charlotte and Max. Mrs. Sartin accepted
+the diversion, but kept an anxious eye on Sam, who ate hard and seemed
+to recover some of his ordinary composure with each mouthful, much to
+Christopher's amazement. By the time tea was finished he was himself
+again. There was no lingering then. He went back to work. Christopher
+said he must go too, and bade the family good-bye. The farewell was as
+cordial as the welcome had been cold and he clattered downstairs after
+Sam with many promises to come again.
+
+The two boys talked freely of the passing world as they went through
+the streets, in the purely impersonal way of their age, and it was
+with great diffidence and much hesitation Christopher managed to hint
+he'd like to buy something for the kiddies.
+
+Sam grinned.
+
+"Sweets," he suggested. "They eat 'em up and leave no mess about."
+
+Christopher turned out his pockets. There was an unbroken ten
+shillings, three shillings and some coppers.
+
+They walked on a while gravely and came to a stand before a
+confectioner's window.
+
+"Cake," suggested Sam, with one eye on his companion and one on the
+show of food within.
+
+"A sugar one?"
+
+"They cost a lot," said Sam shaking his head, but he followed
+Christopher inside. Christopher boldly demanded the price of a small
+wedding cake elaborately iced. It was five shillings.
+
+He put down the money with a lofty air and desired them to send it
+without loss of time to Mrs. Sartin's address.
+
+The woman stared a little at the oddly assorted couple, but the money
+rang true and the order was booked.
+
+As they hurried towards Clare Street, Christopher diffidently asked if
+there was anything Mrs. Sartin would like, and Sam's sharp wits seized
+the occasion to please his mother and Christopher and serve himself at
+the same time.
+
+"Come on to my place and send her some lettuce," he suggested.
+"Mother's main fond of lettuce. We've got some good 'uns in this
+morning."
+
+It was strictly true; it was also true that Master Sam had outstayed
+his meal-time and a new customer might help to avert the probable
+storm awaiting him, as indeed it did.
+
+Mr. Gruner, greengrocer, was standing at the door of his shop looking
+both ways down the street at once, owing to a remarkable squint, and
+his reception of Sam was unfriendly, but quickly checked at the sight
+of his companion, whose extraordinary terms of intimacy with his
+errand boy rendered the good man nearly speechless. The young gent,
+however, ordered lettuces and green peas with a free hand and earned
+Sam's pardon, as anticipated by that far-sighted youth.
+
+The two boys said good-bye and Sam made no hint as to the
+possibilities of a future meeting, neither did Christopher,
+embarrassed by the presence of the greengrocer. He also would be late
+and hurried off, hoping he might still be in time to give Aymer tea
+and relate his adventures. He had no misgivings at all as to Caesar's
+approval of his doings.
+
+As he came out into a main thoroughfare again he passed a big cheap
+drapery establishment and something in the gaudy, crude colouring
+there displayed brought him to a standstill. Jessie was still
+unprovided with a present. The two had exchanged very few words, but
+she by no means loomed in the background of the picture. He stood
+staring at the window and fingering the remaining coins in his pocket.
+One section of the shop front was hung with gaily-coloured feather
+boas. He was dimly conscious he had seen Mrs. Wyatt wear something of
+the sort in soft grey. There was a blue one that was the colour of
+Jessie's blouse, or so Christopher thought, hanging high up. He did
+not admire it at all, but it suggested Jessie to him and after a
+moment's consideration he boldly pushed through the swinging doors
+and marched up the shop.
+
+"I want one of those feather things in the window," he announced to
+the shop-walker's assiduous attentions.
+
+He was delivered over to the care of an amused young woman, who
+proceeded to show him feather boas of all descriptions and qualities.
+Christopher was adamant.
+
+"I want a blue thing that's hanging up in the window, last but one on
+the top row," he insisted, disdaining to look at the fluffy
+abominations spread around him. He was sure they were not like the
+thing Constantia wore now, but it was too late to retreat.
+
+The young woman showed him one she declared was identical.
+
+"I want the one in the window," he persisted doggedly.
+
+In the end he got it, paid for it, saw it packed up and addressed, and
+quenching sundry misgivings in his heart, marched out of the shop and
+treated himself to a bus homeward.
+
+It is perhaps not out of place to mention here that Jessie had no
+misgivings as to the real beauty of the present. She had sighed long
+for such a possession, and having never seen Mrs. Wyatt's delicate
+costly wrap, was perfectly content with her own and applauded
+Christopher's taste loudly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Christopher continued to visit the Sartins and to find considerable
+pleasure in Sam's companionship, who on his few holidays was only too
+glad to explore the grey river and its innumerable wharfs with
+Christopher. Sam was already a fair waterman; he at least spent all
+his scant leisure and scantier pennies in learning that arduous
+profession.
+
+Once Mr. Aston visited Block D. with Christopher, and lingered behind
+gossiping to Mrs. Sartin while the boy went to meet Sam, expected home
+to tea. Sam got nothing out of his mother anent that conversation
+except the information that Mr. Aston was "a real Christian gentleman,
+who knew what trouble was, and don't you make any mistake, but as 'ow
+Mr. Christopher was a lucky young gentleman."
+
+Mr. Aston also found time to visit Sam's master, though on this
+occasion he was not accompanied by Christopher, who, indeed, chanced
+to be on the river with Sam Sartin that afternoon.
+
+It must not be imagined that Christopher had no other friends than the
+humble Sartins. Besides the Wyatt household, half a dozen families
+with boys of his age welcomed him gladly enough, but though he was on
+good terms with these and though not one of the boys could afford to
+despise him as an antagonist in any sport, yet none of them contrived
+to have more than a very superficial idea of Christopher Aston. They
+took to him at once, but he remained just the good-natured, jolly
+acquaintance of the first day, never more, if never less. Christopher,
+indeed, though he confessed it to no one, not even to Aymer, felt a
+little cut off from this pleasant clan, who held the same traditions,
+the same experiences, and who went through the same training at their
+various schools, who led indeed a life that differed essentially from
+Christopher.
+
+He was never conscious of any lack of company. The Astons, old and
+young, were companions who answered to every need of his energetic
+mind. He made giant strides in his studies in these days and passed
+beyond the average into the class of those of real ability. All his
+well-earned holidays were spent at Marden, where there was always
+Patricia as a most admirable playfellow.
+
+It was when Christopher was a little over fifteen and Patricia about
+the same age that the first definite result of their companionship
+came about.
+
+On the other side of the lake at Marden Court the high road, sunk
+between a low wall on one side and the upsloping land on the other,
+ran directly eastward and westward, joining eventually a second Great
+Road of historic importance to Christopher Aston. The rough ground
+beyond the road was covered with low scrub, and dwarf twisted
+hawthorns, with a plentiful show of molehills. Here and there were
+groups of Scotch firs, and the crest of the hill was wooded with oaks
+and beeches and a fringe of larches, with here and there a silvery
+black poplar.
+
+Christopher and Patricia were fond of this rough land that lay beyond
+the actual park. In early days it had made a glorious stage for
+"desert islanders," with the isle-studded lake to bound it, whose
+further shore for the nonce melted into vague mistiness. Later on,
+when desert islands were out of fashion, it was still good ground to
+explore, and through the woods away over the hill one came to a
+delectable wide-spread country, where uncultivated down mingled with
+cornfields and stretches of clover, a country bounded by long,
+spacious curving lines of hill and dale, tree-capped ridges and bare
+contours, with here and there the gash of a chalk pit gleaming
+white.
+
+Just at a point where a stretch of down-land ran into a little copse,
+was a small barrow. A round green mound, memento of a forgotten
+history that was real and visible enough in its own day, as real as
+the two children of "the Now," with whom the spot was a favourite
+camping ground.
+
+Patricia, who knew all about barrows from Nevil, used to invent
+wonderful stories of this one, to which Christopher lent a critical
+attention, adding here and there a practical touch.
+
+It was he who first suggested exploring the mound, and one day they
+dragged heavy spades thither and worked hard for an hour or two
+without great result, when suddenly Patricia began shovelling back her
+pile of brown earth with feverish haste.
+
+"I don't like it. It is horrid," she panted in return to Christopher's
+protests. The idea of desecration was so strong on her that when her
+companion still indignantly protested, the black passion leapt up to
+life and she flung round at him.
+
+It was then that Christopher made his discovery. He saw the mad flare
+in her face and flung his strong arms round her from behind, and held
+her against him with her hands in his gripped fast to her breast.
+
+"Steady on, Patricia," he said sharply, "don't get frightened. You
+aren't going to get wild this time."
+
+There was no alarm or anger in his voice and a queer, new note of
+firmness and force. She struggled ineffectually a moment and then came
+the dangerous quietness that waited a chance.
+
+He could feel her muscles strained and rigid still.
+
+"Patricia," he said quite loudly, "drop it. I won't have it, do you
+hear? You _can_ stop if you like now, and you've got to."
+
+She bent back her head and looked at him, her child face old and worn
+and disfigured with her still burning fury. She looked right in his
+eyes: his met hers steady and hard as flints, and through the blind
+passion of her look he saw her soul leap up, appealing, piteous, and
+by heaven-taught instinct, he answered that.
+
+"It's all right, Patricia, you are safe enough. I'm not going to let
+you make a fool of yourself, my dear; don't be afraid. Stop thinking.
+Look at the dark shadows over there--on the cornfield. They'll cut
+that next week."
+
+Little by little he loosed his grasp on her as he felt the tension
+slacken, and presently she stood free, still dazed and bewildered.
+Christopher picked up a spade and whistled.
+
+"All the same, you are right, Patricia," he said thoughtfully, "it
+does seem a shame to disturb the old Johnny, and creepy too. I'll fill
+up."
+
+He continued to work hard, watching her out of the corner of his eye,
+but talking cheerfully. Presently she took up her spade and made a
+poor pretence of helping him, but she said nothing till they had done
+and he suggested a return.
+
+"Do you mind resting a bit, first?"
+
+Her subdued voice called for a scrutinising glance. Then he dropped
+his spade and flung himself on the grass by her side. A little wind
+swept up the downland to them, making the brown benets nod in a
+friendly fashion. The purple scabious, too, nodded cheerfully.
+Patricia picked one and began stroking it with her fingers.
+Christopher lay on his back and whistled again softly, watching a
+lark, as he had watched one five years ago, when a small boy, by the
+side of the Great Road.
+
+"Christopher, how did you do it?" demanded Patricia abruptly.
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Stop me."
+
+"I didn't. You stopped yourself."
+
+"I never have before."
+
+"Then you ought to have. You see you can, if you only will think."
+
+"I _can't_ think."
+
+"But you did," he insisted, with some reason.
+
+"Because you made me. I'd have been much angrier with anyone else--it
+was like--like--holding on to a rock, when the water was sucking one
+away."
+
+"Bosh," said Christopher, sitting upright suddenly.
+
+"Look here, Patricia, it was only that I made you take time to think:
+no one, even you (he put in rudely enough), could be silly enough to
+make such a little idiot of yourself if you _thought_ a moment.
+Everyone seems to take it for granted you'll go on being--stupid--or
+else they are afraid to stop you, and I--well I won't have it,
+Patricia, that's all. You must jolly well learn to stop."
+
+His boyish words were rougher than his voice, just as his real feeling
+in the matter was deeper than his expression of it, and secretly he
+was a little proud of his achievement and felt a subtle proprietorship
+over his companion that was not displeasing.
+
+Patricia slipped her arm in his and leant her golden head against
+him.
+
+"Christopher, I want to tell you all I can remember about it. I don't
+know what anyone else has told you."
+
+"All right, fire away," returned Christopher resignedly.
+
+"The only thing I can remember at all about my father is seeing him
+get into rages like that with my mother. I can remember him quite
+well, at all sorts of times; he was very big and fair, and splendid,
+but always everything I remember ends in that. And I can remember
+getting in a rage when I was quite little and seeing my mother turn
+white, and she jumped up and ran out of the room crying out to Renata.
+My father was killed hunting when I was six years old and mother died
+when I was nine years old. Renata was married then, you know, so I
+came to live with her and Nevil. But always I remembered when I was
+naughty like that, my mother used to look frightened and go away and
+our old nurse used to come and scold me and watch me till I could have
+killed her. Renata, darling Renata, used to talk to me after and make
+me promise to try and be good, but she, too, was really afraid when I
+was bad. I suppose they had both had so bad a time with father." She
+stopped, gazing out at a misty half-understood tragedy, whose very
+dimness woke a faint echo of terror in her heart, for she was as
+surely the daughter of the woman who had suffered as of the man who
+had caused the suffering.
+
+"That's all," said Patricia, with a sudden movement, "everyone always
+takes it as part of me. Nevil says I'll outgrow it. I don't--and
+Renata cries."
+
+"And I scold you. Anyhow, it isn't part of you in my eyes, but just a
+beastly sort of thing which you let get hold of you, and then it isn't
+you at all. It's all rot inheriting things, though of course, if you
+_think_ so----" this young philosopher on the much-debated subject
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"But I don't think so, I don't want to think so," cried poor Patricia;
+"it's just because you don't think it that you made me feel I can stop
+it. Oh, Christopher, go on believing I can help it, please."
+
+"But I do. Of course I do. It's a beastly shame anyone ever suggested
+anything else to you. Come along home, Patricia, it will be
+tea-time."
+
+This was the establishing of a covenant between the two. Whether it
+was from the suggestion or the dominant will of the boy himself, or
+both causes combined, Patricia began to gather strength against her
+terrible inheritance and, at all events in Christopher's presence,
+actually did gain some show of control over her fits of passion.
+
+The first of these times, about six months after the covenant on the
+barrow, Nevil was present. Renata and one of the children had been
+there also, but Renata had seen the queer pallor creep up in her
+sister's face before even Christopher had guessed and had straightway
+hurried off with Master Max, a proceeding which usually precipitated
+events.
+
+Then Christopher flung down his work and caught her clenched hand in
+his.
+
+"Stop it, Patricia," he said imperiously.
+
+Nevil held his breath. It was a tradition in the Connell family that
+interference invariably led to a catastrophe. In his indolent way he
+had taken this belief on trust, the "laissez faire" policy being well
+in accordance with his easy nature.
+
+However, tradition was clearly wrong, for after one ineffectual
+struggle, Patricia stood still and presently said something to
+Christopher that Nevil did not catch, but he saw the boy free her and
+Patricia remained silently looking out of the window. Christopher
+turned to pick up his book, and for the first time remembered Nevil
+was present and grew rather red. Nevil had watched them both with a
+speculative eye, for the moment an historian of the future rather than
+of the past. He said nothing, however, but having discoursed a while
+on the possibility of skating next day, sauntered away.
+
+He came to anchor eventually in Aymer's room, and sat smoking by the
+fire, his long legs crossed and the contemplative mood in the
+ascendency. His brother knew from experience that Nevil had something
+to say, and would say it in his own inimitable way if left alone.
+
+"Christopher's a remarkable youth," he said presently.
+
+"Have you just discovered it?" said Aymer drily.
+
+"He is no respecter of persons," pursued Nevil quietly; "by the way,
+has it ever struck you, Aymer, that he'll marry some day?"
+
+"There's time before us, yet. I hope. He isn't quite sixteen, Nevil."
+
+"Yes, but there it is," he waved his hand vaguely. "I think of it for
+myself when I look at Max sometimes."
+
+Aymer wanted to laugh out loud, which would have reduced his brother's
+communicative mood to mere frivolity, and he wished to get at what lay
+behind, so he remained grave.
+
+"There's Patricia, too," went on Nevil in the same vague way. "She,
+too, will do it some day. It's lamentable, but unavoidable. And
+talking of Patricia brings me back to Christopher's remarkableness."
+
+He related the little scene he had just witnessed in his slow, clear
+way, made no comment thereon, but poked the fire meditatively, when he
+had finished.
+
+Aymer, too, was silent.
+
+"You are her sole guardian, are you not?" he asked presently.
+
+"With Renata. I wonder, Aymer, if anyone could have controlled that
+unhappy Connell?"
+
+Aymer ignored the irrelevant remark.
+
+"Renata does not count. Nevil, would you have any objections--as her
+guardian?"
+
+Nevil strolled across to his brother and sat on the edge of his couch.
+He took up a sandy kitten, descendant of one of Christopher's early
+pets, and began playing with it, attempting to wrap it up in his
+handkerchief.
+
+"If you would mind, we will guard against the remote contingency at
+which you hint, by keeping Christopher away when he is a bit older,"
+said Aymer steadily.
+
+"My dear Caesar, it's not I who might object--it's you. You know what
+Patricia is, poor child. I thought it might not fit in with your
+plans. She hasn't a penny of her own, though, of course, Renata and I
+will see to that." He knotted the handkerchief at the four corners and
+swung it to and fro to the astonishment of the imprisoned kitten.
+
+"Christopher has nothing either," said Aymer almost sharply, "and I
+shall see to that, with your permission, Nevil. That unfortunate
+kitten!"
+
+Nevil released it. It scampered over the floor, hid under a chair and
+then rushed back at him and scrambled up his leg.
+
+"Indeed, if things turn out as I hope, I shall have to provide for
+him," went on Aymer steadily, "indeed I wish to do so anyway. It will
+mean less for Max, but----"
+
+"What a beastly ugly kitten," remarked Nevil suddenly with great
+emphasis, placing the animal very gently on the floor again.
+
+"Don't swear, Nevil," retorted Aymer with a little ghost of a smile.
+
+"Very well," answered his brother meekly, "but it is. Aymer, don't be
+an ass, old fellow--Max won't want anything."
+
+He lounged out presently before Aymer could make up his mind to vex
+him further with the question of Max's inheritance.
+
+The property set aside for the use of the son and heir of the Astons
+provided a very handsome income, the original capital of which could
+not be touched. In early days Aymer had found the income barely
+sufficient for his wants. He spent it freely now--the Astons were no
+misers, but his father and he managed to nearly double the original
+capital and this was Aymer's to do with as he would. Apparently he
+meant it for Christopher. It was one of Nevil's little weaknesses that
+he could not endure any reminder of the fact that to him and his small
+son would the line descend, and that his brother's was but a life
+interest, and his position as his father's heir a merely formal matter
+of no actual value. Poor Nevil, who was the least self-seeking of men,
+could not endure any reminder of his elder brother's real condition of
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+There was a certain princely building in Birmingham where all the
+business connected with the name of Peter Masters was transacted. On
+each floor were long rooms full of clerks bending over rows of desks,
+carrying on with automatic regularity the affairs of each separate
+concern. Thus on the ground floor the Lack Vale Coal Company worked
+out its grimy history, on the second floor the Brunt Rubber Company
+had command, on the fifth the great Steel Axle Company, the richest
+and most important of all, lodged royally. But on the very topmost
+floor of all were the offices devoted to the personal affairs of Peter
+Masters, and through them, shut in by a watchful guard of head clerks,
+was the innermost sanctum, the nest of the great spider whose
+intricate web stretched over so great a circumference, the central
+point from which radiated the vast circle of concerns, and to which
+they ultimately returned materialised into precious metal--the private
+office, in short, of Peter Masters.
+
+The heads of each separate floor were picked men--great men away from
+the golden glamour of the master mind--each involved in the success or
+failure of his own concern, all partners in their respective firms,
+but partners who accepted the share allotted to them without question,
+who served faithfully or disappeared from the ken of their
+fellow-workers, who were nominally accountable to their respective
+"company," but actually dependent on the word and will of the great
+man up above them. None but these men and his own special clerks ever
+approached him. Some junior clerk or obscure worker might pass him
+occasionally in a passage, or await the service of the lift at his
+pleasure; they might receive a sharp glance, a demand for name and
+department, but they knew no more of this controller of their humble
+destinies.
+
+It was a marvellous organisation, a perfected system, a machine whose
+parts were composed of living men.
+
+The owner of the machine cared much for the whole and nothing for the
+parts. When some screw or nut failed to answer its purpose, it was
+cast aside and another substituted. There was no question, no appeal.
+Nuts and screws are cheap. The various parts were well cared for, well
+oiled, just so long as they fulfilled their purpose; if they failed in
+that--well, the running of the machine was not endangered for
+sentiment.
+
+Apart from this business, however, Peter Masters was a man of
+sentiment, though the workers in Masters's Building would have scorned
+the idea. He had expended this sentiment on two people, one, his wife,
+who had died in Whitmansworth Union, the other Aymer Aston, his
+cousin, who on the moment of his declared union with Elizabeth
+Hibbault, had fallen victim to so grim a tragedy. His "sentiment" had
+never spread beyond these two people, certainly never to the person of
+his unseen child, whom, however, he was prepared to "discover" in his
+own good time.
+
+His wife had left him within a year of his marriage, and whatever
+investigations he may have privately made, they were sub rosa, and he
+had persistently refused to make public ones. She would come back, he
+believed, with an almost childish simplicity in the lure of his great
+fortune,--if she needed money,--or him. That she should suffer real
+poverty or hardship, lack the bare necessities of life, never for a
+moment occurred to him. Why should she, when his whole fortune was at
+her disposal--for her personal needs?
+
+People who knew him a little said he had resented the slight to his
+money more than the scandal to himself when Mrs. Masters disappeared.
+They were in the wrong. Peter's pride had been very cruelly hurt: she
+had not only scorned his gold, but spurned his affection, which was
+quite genuine and deep so far as it went, but since he had never taken
+the world into his confidence in the matter of his having any
+affection to bestow, he as carefully kept his own counsel as to the
+amount it had been hurt, and continued his life as if the coming and
+going of Mrs. Masters was a matter of as little concern as the coming
+or going of any other of the immortal souls and human bodies who got
+caught in the toils of the great Machine.
+
+As for the expected child, let her educate it after her own foolish,
+pretty fancy. When it was of an age to understand matters, the man of
+Power would slip in and claim his own, and he never doubted but that
+the dazzle of his gold would outshine the vapid illusions of the
+mother, and procure for him the homage of his offspring. Such was the
+mingled simplicity and cuteness of the man that he never for one
+moment allowed to himself there was any other possible reverse to this
+picture, this, the only thought of revenge he harboured, its very
+sting to be drawn by his own good-natured laugh at her "fancies." So
+he worked on in keen enjoyment, and the dazzle of the gold grew
+brighter as the years passed away unnoticed.
+
+Peter Masters sat in the innermost sanctuary of the Temple of Mammon.
+It was a big corner room with six windows facing south and east, with
+low projecting balustrades outside which hid the street far down
+below. The room had not a severely business-like aspect, it rather
+suggested to the observer the word business was translatable into
+other meanings than work. Thus the necessary carpet was more than a
+carpet in that it was a work of Eastern art. The curtains were more
+than mere hangings to exclude light or draught, but fabrics to delight
+the eye. The plainness of the walls was but a luxury to set off the
+admirable collection of original sketches and clever caricatures that
+adorned them. One end of the room was curtained off to serve as a
+dining-room on necessity. No sybarite could have complained of the
+comfort of the chairs or the arrangement of the light. The great table
+at which Peter Masters sat, was not only of the most solid mahogany,
+but it was put together by an artist in joinery--a skilful, silent
+servant to its owner, offering him with a small degree of friction
+every possible convenience a busy man could need. The only other
+furniture in the room was a gigantic safe, or rather a series of
+little safes cased in mahogany which filled one wall like a row of
+school lockers, each labelled clearly with a letter.
+
+Peter Masters leant back in his chair and gazed straight before him
+for one moment--just that much space of time he allowed before the
+next problem of the day came before him--then he rang one of the row
+of electric bells suspended overhead.
+
+Its short, imperious summons resounded directly in the room occupied
+by the head clerk of the Lack Vale Coal Company, and that worthy,
+without waiting to finish the word he begun writing, slipped from his
+stool and hurried to the office door of his chief, where he knocked
+softly and entered in obedience to a curt order. The room was a
+simplified edition of the room on the top floor; everything was there,
+but in a less luxurious degree, and the result was insignificant. The
+manager of the Lack Vale Coal Company, who sat at the table, was a
+hard-featured, thin-lipped man of forty-five, with thin hair already
+turning grey, and pince-nez dangling from his button hole.
+
+"Mr. Masters's bell, sir," said the clerk apologetically.
+
+Mr. Foilet nodded and his thin lips tightened. He gathered up a sheaf
+of carefully arranged papers and went out by a private door to the
+central lift.
+
+Peter greeted him affably and waved his hand to the opposite chair.
+
+"You have Bennin's report at last?"
+
+"Yes. He apologised for the delay, but thought it useless to send it
+until he had investigated the gallery itself."
+
+"That's the business of his engineers. If he is not satisfied with
+them he should get others."
+
+Mr. Foilet bowed, selected a paper from the sheaf he carried and
+handed it over. Peter Masters perused it with precisely the same
+kindly smiling countenance he wore when studying a paper or
+deciphering a friendly epistle. It was not a friendly letter at all,
+it was a curt, bald statement that a certain rich gallery in a certain
+mine was unsafe for working, though the opinion of two specialists
+differed on the point. The two reports were enclosed, and when all
+three reports were read Peter asked for the wage sheet of the mine.
+There was no cause of complaint there.
+
+"The articles of the last settlement between the firm and the men have
+been rigorously adhered to?" questioned Masters, flinging down the
+paper.
+
+"Rigorously. I will say they have taken no advantage of their
+success."
+
+Peter smiled. "It is for us to do that. Mr. Weirs pronounces the
+gallery fit for working. The seam is one of the richest we have. What
+improvements can be done to the ventilation and propping before Monday
+are to be done, but the gallery is to be worked then, until the new
+shaft is completed. Then we will reconsider it."
+
+Again Mr. Foilet bowed, but his hand fingered his glasses nervously.
+
+"And if the men refuse?" he questioned in a low voice, with averted
+eyes.
+
+Peter Masters waved his hand.
+
+"There are others. Men who receive wages like that must expect to have
+a certain amount of danger to face. Danger is the spice of life." He
+leant back in his chair, humming a little tune and watched Mr. Foilet
+with smiling eyes. Mr. Foilet was wondering whether his chief was
+personally fond of spice, but he knew better than to say more. He left
+the room with a vague uneasy feeling at his heart. "A nice concern it
+will be if anything happens before the New Shaft's ready," he
+muttered; "if it wasn't for his wonderful luck, I'd have refused."
+
+So he thought: but in reality he would have done no such thing.
+
+The manager of the Stormby Foundry, which was a private property of
+Mr. Masters's, and no company, was the next visitor. He was a tall
+lank Scotchman with a hardy countenance and a soft heart when not
+fretted by the roll of the Machine. The question he brought was
+concerning the selling of some land in the neighbourhood of the works,
+for the erection of cottages.
+
+"Surely you need no instructions on that point, Mr. Murray," said
+Peter a little more curtly than he had spoken to Mr. Foilet.
+
+"There are two offers," said the Scotchman quietly. "Tennant will give
+L150 and Fortman L200."
+
+"Then there is no question."
+
+"Tennant will build decent cottages of good material and with proper
+foundations, and Fortman--well, you know what Fortman's hovels are
+like."
+
+"No, I don't," said Peter drily. "He has never been my landlord."
+
+Mr. Murray appeared to swallow something, probably a wish, with
+difficulty.
+
+"They are mere hovels pretending to be villas."
+
+"No one's obliged to live in them."
+
+"There are no others," persisted Mr. Murray desperately, imperilling
+his own safety for the cause.
+
+Masters frowned ominously.
+
+"Mr. Murray," he said, "as I have before remarked, you are too
+far-sighted. Your work is to sell the ground for the benefit of the
+company, which, I may remind you, is for your benefit also. You have
+not to build the cottages or live in them. If the people don't like
+them they needn't take them. I do not profess to house the people. I
+pay them accordingly. They can afford to live in decent houses if they
+like."
+
+"If they can get them," remarked the heroic Mr. Murray.
+
+Peter smiled, his anger apparently having melted away.
+
+"Let them arrange it with Fortman, and keep your obstinacy for more
+profitable business, Murray, and you'll be as rich as I am some day."
+
+There was nothing apparently offensive in the words, yet the speaker
+seemed a singularly unlovable person as he spoke them, and Murray did
+not smile at the compliment, but went out with a grave air.
+
+Neither he nor his business lingered on Peter's mind once the door had
+closed behind him. Peter got up and lounged to the window. He stood a
+while looking down into the street below with its crowd of strangely
+foreshortened figures. On the opposite side of the wide street was a
+shop where mechanical toys were sold, a paradise for boys. As Peter
+watched, a chubby-faced, stout little man with a tall, lanky boy at
+his side came to a stand before the windows. Peter knew the man to be
+one of the hardest-headed, shrewdest men in the iron trade, and he
+guessed the boy was his son. Both figures disappeared within the shop,
+the elder with evident reluctance, the younger with assured
+expectation. Peter waited a long time--a longer period than he would
+have supposed he had to spare, had he thought of it. They emerged at
+last in company with a big parcel, hailed a hansom and drove away.
+Peter looked at the clock and chuckled. "To think Coblan is that sort
+of fool. Well, that youngster will add little to the fortunes of
+Coblan and Company. Toys!" He turned away from the window, and, seated
+again at his desk, began to scribble down some dates on a scrap of
+paper. Then he leant back in his chair thoughtfully.
+
+"Hibbault says that boy has just got a rise in that berth of his in
+Liverpool. I'll let him have a year or so more to prove his grit. I
+suppose Hibbault's to be trusted, but I might write to the firm and
+ask how he gets on! However, Aymer's boy shall have the vacancy!"
+
+Therefore he took up his pen again and wrote the following brief
+letter:
+
+                         PRINCES BUILDING, Birmingham, April 10.
+
+    DEAR AYMER:--
+
+    Are you going to 'prentice that boy of yours to me or not?
+    I've an opening now in the Steel Axle Company, if you like to
+    take it.
+
+                                      Yours,
+                                                  PETER MASTERS.
+
+
+
+
+Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Despite his honest intention never to stand between Christopher and
+any fate that might serve to draw him into connection with his father,
+Aymer had a hard fight to master his keen desire to put Peter's letter
+in the fire and say nothing about it. Surely, after all, he had the
+best right to say what his adopted charge's future should be. It was
+he who had rescued him from obscurity, who had lavished on him the
+love and care his selfish, erratic father, for his own ambitious ends,
+denied him. Aymer believed, moreover, that a career under Peter's
+influence would mean either the blunting if not the utter destruction
+of every generous and admirable quality in the boy, or a rapid
+unbalanced development of those socialistic tendencies, the seeds of
+which were sown by his mother and nurtured in the hard experience of
+his early days. Besides this, Peter's interest in the boy was probably
+a mere freak, or at the best, sprang from a desire to serve his
+cousin, unless by any remote chance he had stumbled on a clue to
+Christopher's identity.
+
+This last suspicion wove itself like a black thread into the grey woof
+of Aymer's existence. His whole being by now had become concentrated
+in the boy's life. It was a renewal of youth, hopes, ambitions, again
+possible in the person of this child, and for the second time a
+fierce, restless jealousy of his cousin began to stir in the inner
+depths of Aymer's being, as fire which may yet break into life beneath
+the grey, piled-up ashes which conceal it.
+
+He sought help and advice from none and fought hard alone for his own
+salvation through the long watches of a black night--fought against
+the jealousy that prompted him to hedge Christopher about with
+precautions and restrictions which, however desirable they might seem
+to his finite wisdom, yet were, he knew, only the outcome of his
+smouldering jealousy, and might well grow to formidable barriers for
+Christopher to climb in later years. Aymer fought, too, for that sense
+of larger faith that in the midst of careful action yet leaves room
+for the hand of God and does not confound the little ideas of the
+builder with the vast plan of the Great Architect.
+
+So the letter--the little fact which stood for such great
+possibilities--was shown to Christopher, to whom it was a mere
+nothing, to be tossed aside with scorn.
+
+"I don't want to be under him," he commented indignantly, "I don't
+care about his old axles," and then because Caesar was silent and he
+felt himself in the wrong, he apologised.
+
+"All the same, I don't want to go to him unless you particularly wish
+it, Caesar," he insisted.
+
+But Caesar did not answer directly.
+
+"You are certain you want to be an engineer?" he asked at length.
+
+"Certain,--only--" Christopher stopped, went over to the window and
+looked out.
+
+They were in London and it was an evening in early spring. There was a
+faint primrose glow in the sky and a blackbird was whistling at the
+end of the garden. The hum of the great town was as part of the
+silence of the room.
+
+Now at last must come the moment when Christopher must speak plainly
+of his darling purpose that had been striving for expression these
+many months, that purpose which had grown out of a childish fancy in
+the long ago days when his mother and he toiled along the muddy
+wearisome roads, or wended painfully through choking white dust under
+a blazing sun----
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mother, how does roads get made here in the country, are they made
+like in London?"
+
+"Yes, Jim, they were made somewhere by men, not over well, I think,
+for walkers such as we are."
+
+"I'll make roads when I'm big," announced Jim, "real good ones that
+you can walk on easily."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Christopher broke his purpose to Caesar abruptly.
+
+"I want to be a Road Engineer."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A Roadmaker. To make high roads,--not in towns, but across countries.
+Roads that will be easy to travel on and will last." Again he stopped,
+embarrassed, for the vision before him which he only half saw, made
+him hot and confused. Yet it was a good vision, perhaps that was
+why--a picture of countless toiling human beings travelling on his
+roads all down the coming ages, knowing them for good roads, and
+praising the maker. But he was a boy and was abashed at the vision and
+hoped Caesar did not guess at it. Caesar, however, saw it all more
+clearly than Christopher himself and was not abashed but well
+content.
+
+The boy went back to Caesar's side. The thing was done, spoken of, made
+alive, and now he could plead for it, work to gain his end,--also
+there was a glow in his face and a new eagerness in his manner.
+
+"Oh, Caesar, do say it's possible. I always wanted to do it, even when
+I was a little chap, and watched men breaking stones on the road."
+
+"It's quite possible, only it will want working out. You must go
+abroad--France--Germany--I must see where to place you."
+
+"Yes, I must learn how they are made everywhere, and then--then there
+must be roads to be made somewhere--in new countries if not here."
+
+They talked it out earnestly; Caesar himself caught the boy's
+enthusiasm, and the moment Mr. Aston came in he too was drawn into the
+discussion and offered good advice.
+
+Thus Christopher's future was decided upon as something to be worked
+out quite independent of Peter Masters and his millions. Perhaps
+because he had seen the vision which covered Christopher with shy
+confusion, Aymer became very prosaic and practical over the details,
+and Mr. Aston was the only one of the trio who gave any more thought
+to the boy's dream on its sentimental side. He used to sit in the
+evenings watching the two poring over maps, letters and guidebooks,
+thinking far thoughts for them both, occasionally uttering them.
+
+"I wonder," he remarked one night, "if you know what a lucky young man
+you are, Master Christopher, not only in having a real wish concerning
+your own future--which is none too common a lot--but in being free to
+follow it."
+
+Christopher looked up from the map he was studying.
+
+"Yes, I know I'm lucky, St. Michael. It must be perfectly horrible to
+have to be something one does not want to be. I suppose that's why
+lots of people never get on in the world. It seems beastly unfair."
+
+"Yet I've known men to succeed at work for which they had no original
+aptitude," returned Mr. Aston quietly.
+
+"Mightn't they have succeeded better at what they did like?"
+
+"That is beside the mark, so that they did not fail altogether. I knew
+a soldier once," he went on dreamily, "just a private. A good chap. He
+was a soldier because he was born and bred in the midst of a
+regiment, but his one passion was music. He taught himself a little
+instead of learning his drill. In the end he deserted and joined a
+German band. That argues nothing for his musical taste, you say. He
+just thought it a stepping-stone, but it was a tombstone. He was quite
+a smart soldier, too."
+
+"Well, I think it was jolly hard lines on him to have to be a soldier
+at all, if he didn't like it. He wanted a Caesar to help him out. I
+think all fellows ought to have a chance, there should be someone or
+something to say, 'what do you want to be?'"
+
+"You'd be surprised how few could answer. Prove your point yourself
+anyway, my dear boy. Succeed."
+
+"I mean to," said Christopher with shut teeth and an intonation that
+reminded both men of Peter Masters himself.
+
+"We are all of us Roadmakers of one kind or another," went on Mr.
+Aston meditatively, "making the way rougher or smoother for those who
+come after us. Happy if we only succeed in rolling in a few of the
+stones that hurt our own feet."
+
+"You _are_ rather like a steam roller," remarked Aymer quietly, "it
+hadn't struck me before."
+
+Mr. Aston rumpled his hair distractedly and Christopher giggled.
+
+"I wasn't talking of myself at all," said Mr. Aston hastily. "I was
+merely thinking of you making things smooth for Christopher. You are
+much more like a steam roller than I am. You are bigger."
+
+Christopher began to laugh helplessly, and Aymer protested rather
+indignantly.
+
+"I deny the likeness. But if rolling has to be done, it is better to
+do it heavily, I suppose. Whose roads shall we roll, Christopher?"
+
+Christopher looked up, suddenly grave.
+
+"What do you mean, Caesar?"
+
+"You say everyone should have a chance and my father insists we are
+bound by some unknown Board of Guardians to level our neighbours'
+roads, so where will you start?"
+
+"On Sam Sartin!"
+
+He sat upright, his face glowing, looking straight at Caesar. Caesar's
+tone might be flippant, but if he meant what Christopher supposed him
+to mean, he must not let the golden opportunity slip.
+
+"I thought Sam was in a greengrocer's shop," said Caesar in a drawling,
+indifferent manner.
+
+"So he is. But would anyone be in a greengrocer's shop if they could
+be in anything else? When we were kids, he and I, we used to plan we'd
+be Lord Mayors--A greengrocer!"
+
+"An honest and respectable calling, if a little dirty," murmured Mr.
+Aston. "The greengrocers, I mean not the Lord Mayors."
+
+"Sam's got a head on his shoulders. He's really awfully sharp. He
+could be anything he liked," urged Christopher. "Could you help him,
+Caesar?"
+
+"You might if you liked."
+
+"Make what I like of him?"
+
+"No. Most emphatically, no. Make what he likes of himself. A crossing
+sweeper, if he fancies that. Buy him a crossing and a broom, you
+know."
+
+"But really, what he likes; not joking?"
+
+"Sober earnest. I'll see to-morrow, and tell you. Now, will you kindly
+find that place you were looking for when we were so inopportunely
+interrupted with irrelevant moralisings."
+
+"I won't do it again," said his father deprecatingly. "I apologise."
+
+Aymer gravely bowed his head and the subject was dropped. But when
+they were alone that evening, Mr. Aston reverted to it.
+
+"What are you going to do with Sam Sartin?" he asked, "and why are you
+doing it?"
+
+"Sam must settle the first question himself," said Aymer, idly drawing
+appalling pictures of steamrollers on the fly-leaf of a book, "as to
+the second--" he paused in his drawing, put the book down and turned
+to his father.
+
+"Christopher's got the makings of a rabid socialist in him. If he's
+not given good data to go on he will be a full disciple when he's
+twenty-one, all theories and dreams, caught in a mesh of words. I
+don't want that. It's natural too, for, after all, Christopher is not
+of the People, any more than--than his mother was." He examined his
+pencil critically. "She always credited them with the fine aspirations
+and pure passions of her own soul, instead of allowing them the very
+reasonable and just aspirations and ambitions that they have and
+should be able to reach. Sam may be an exception, but I don't think he
+is. I'm quite ready to give Christopher a free hand to help him,
+provided he knows what he wants himself."
+
+"To provide an object lesson for Christopher?"
+
+"Yes, precisely."
+
+"Is it quite fair on Sam?"
+
+Aymer looked up quickly.
+
+"He benefits anyway."
+
+"Possibly; but you do not care about that."
+
+"Christopher does."
+
+"Ah, yes. Christopher does. That is worth considering. Otherwise----"
+
+"Otherwise?"
+
+"How far are we justified in experimenting with our fellow-creatures,
+I wonder?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was a day of expectancy--and promise--of blackthorn breaking into
+snowy showers, and of meadows richly green, blue sky and white
+cloud--and a sense of racing, headlong life joyously tremulous over
+the earth.
+
+The boys had met at Paddington Station, Sam Sartin by no means abashed
+at his own appearance in an old suit of Christopher's, and wearing, in
+deference to his friend's outspoken wishes, a decorous dark-blue tie
+and unobtrusive shirt. He looked what he was--a good, solid,
+respectable working lad out for a holiday. Excitement, if he felt it,
+was well suppressed, surprise at the new world of luxury--they
+travelled down first--was equally carefully concealed. The code of
+manners in which he was reared was stringent in this particular.
+
+Christopher, on the contrary, was in high spirits. Sam had watched him
+come down the platform, out of the corner of his eye, with a queer
+sense of proud possession. He would have liked to proclaim to the
+world that the young master there, who walked like a prince, was his
+own particular pal. Yet he pretended not to see him till Christopher
+clapped him on the shoulder with a warm greeting.
+
+"I've got the tickets. Come on," said the giver of the treat. "I say,
+what a day, Sammie--if it's good in London what will it be in the
+country?"
+
+"Cold, I shouldn't wonder. What's the matter with London?" said the
+cockney sarcastically.
+
+"Old Bricks and Mortar," retorted Christopher gaily. "You'll know
+what's the matter with it when you come back. It's too jolly small."
+
+"Big enough for me. But the country's well enough to play in. I say,
+Mr. Christopher, I've been thinking, we may not find any boats. It's
+early."
+
+"Oh, I've seen to that," said Christopher with the faintest suspicion
+of lordliness in his voice. "I wrote to the man I know at Maidenhead
+to have a boat ready--a good one."
+
+Sam grinned. "My, what a head-piece we've got, to be sure."
+
+The other flushed a little. "It was really Caesar who suggested it," he
+owned.
+
+Sam had never been down that line before, so Christopher pointed out
+the matters of interest. They found their boat ready at Maidenhead,
+bestowed their coats in the bow and settled themselves. Christopher
+insisted on Sam's rowing stroke. Sam thought politeness obliged him to
+refuse, but he ultimately gave in. He retrieved the little error in
+manners by handling his oar in a masterly way. "Stroke shaping well,"
+Christopher heard the boatman say as they went off.
+
+The wind on the river was cold enough and, in spite of the bright sun,
+cut through them. But half an hour's steady pulling brought them into
+a glow and mood to enjoy themselves. Christopher called for a rest.
+Sam looked over his shoulder.
+
+"Tired?"
+
+"No," responded the other, laughing, "but we didn't come down just to
+row 'eyes in boat'; I want to look at the world."
+
+"Nothing but green fields and trees and cows."
+
+"I like cows."
+
+"I don't."
+
+Nevertheless he desisted from work, and they drifted on. Christopher
+was bubbling over with a great secret that was to be the crowning
+episode of the day. It would be fatal to divulge it too early, so he
+plunged into friendly discussions and they rowed on happy in the
+physical exertion, the clean, fresh air and the smiling earth.
+
+It was not till after lunch that Christopher decided the great matter
+must be broached, to allow time to discuss it in full detail. They had
+changed places and he was stroke now. He pulled with a slower swing
+but greater power than Sam and for some time bent to his work in
+silence, thinking over what he was going to say. He took a rapid
+mental survey of Sam's present life and future, of what it held and
+more especially of what it did not hold; the limitations, the lack of
+opportunity, the struggle for existence that left no room for
+ambitions or hopes. And he, with Caesar's help, was going to change all
+that, and open the gates of the world wide for him. If the thought
+were exhilarating, it had also a serious side. He was not afraid, he
+was too young for that, but he had sense enough to know it was a big
+thing to uproot a life and plant it in a new spot more congenial to
+growth.
+
+Mr. Aston's words to him that morning came back with puzzling
+insistence. "Remember," he had said in his kindly way, "no two people
+see life through the same glasses. Don't be surprised if Sam's make
+you squint." What did he mean? It was just because he, Christopher,
+was not sure of Sam's real ambition that he was to be given the
+choice. He amused himself while cogitating over it, tasting like an
+epicure the flavour of the good wine to be drunk presently. Sam
+complained he was a bad stroke, and they changed again. This better
+suited his plans. He could see the town boy's thin sloping shoulders
+bend evenly before him. Sam was no athlete in build, but his passion
+for rowing had stood him in good stead and developed muscle and
+endurance.
+
+"He'll choose something in boats," thought Christopher, mentally
+picturing Sam as captain of a great liner and then as an alternative,
+as an admiral of the Fleet, and so came the crucial point.
+
+"Sam, if you had your choice, what would you be?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"But think. I want to know. A greengrocer like Mr. Gruner? Ho, ho!" he
+shouted out wholesome laughter.
+
+Sam grinned. He was less ready to laugh. Life had taken toll of that
+birthright already.
+
+"I hate vegetables. Beastly, dirty things," he said prosaically. "No,
+I wouldn't be a _green_-grocer."
+
+"Well what? An engineer? A doctor, lawyer, parson?"
+
+"Why not a king now?" scoffed Sam.
+
+"Not enough situations vacant. I mean it, really. What would you be if
+you were as free to choose as I am?"
+
+"If I were you, you mean."
+
+"No, not that. If you could choose for yourself as I have."
+
+Sam rowed on stolidly. "Dunno that it's much use bothering," he said
+indifferently. "I'm doing all right, though it's not what I'd
+choose."
+
+It had seemed an easy, insignificant task to break the news five
+minutes ago, but either Christopher had taken the wrong approach or it
+was a stiffer job than he had fancied. He became uneasily conscious
+his own part in it could not be overlooked, that he was doing
+something that evilly-disposed persons might even call magnanimous or
+philanthropic. His face grew red at the thought.
+
+"Sam," he said as naturally as he could, "it happens you can choose,
+you see. Choose anything you like. Caesar's given me a free hand. We
+are both to start life just as we like. What shall it be? I've told
+you my choice."
+
+The narrow form in front never slackened its stroke, but pulled on
+mechanically, and at last spoke a little gruffly.
+
+"Say. You're kidding me, you know."
+
+"I'm not. Dead earnest."
+
+Again the boat shot on, but Christopher stopped rowing. Sam looked
+back over his shoulder.
+
+"You're lazy. Why don't you pull?"
+
+Christopher obeyed mechanically. He knew he could afford to be patient
+now.
+
+"Easy," said the stroke at last.
+
+There was a smooth reach of water before them. Low meadows with
+reddish muddy banks lay on either side, no house or any living soul
+was in sight. Sam rubbed his hands on his trousers, looked back at his
+friend and away again.
+
+"You mean you'll start me in any trade I like? 'Prentice me?"
+
+"Any trade or profession."
+
+"What do you do it for, anyhow?"
+
+"Caesar suggested it. He said I might if I liked."
+
+"Well, why do you do it?"
+
+"Does it matter?"
+
+"I want to know certain."
+
+Christopher looked embarrassed. "Weren't we kids together? Besides, it
+seems to me every chap ought to have a chance of working on the job he
+likes best. It's only fair. It's jolly rough on a fellow to have to do
+just what comes along whether he's fit for it or not."
+
+"Seems to me," said Sam meditatively, "a good many jobs would want
+doing if everyone did what they liked."
+
+"Oh, science would step in and equalise that," returned Christopher,
+hastily quoting from some handbook and went on to further expound his
+creed.
+
+Sam concluded he had been listening to spouters in the Park, but he
+was sharp enough to recognise beneath the crude boyish creed the
+kindly generous nature that prompted it.
+
+"So Caesar says you've just to choose. We'll see you through."
+
+"He must be jolly rich."
+
+"Well, that's why he's rich, isn't it, to be able to do things."
+
+"I don't see what he gets out of it anyhow."
+
+"He doesn't want anything, you silly."
+
+"I want to think this out," said Sam, "there is something I've always
+wanted since I was a kiddy, but I want to think. Row on."
+
+This was intelligible and encouraging. Christopher's sense of flatness
+gave way a little. He pulled steadily, trying to make out what had so
+dashed him in Sam's reception of the great news. He had not yet learnt
+how exceptional is the mind that can accept a favour graciously.
+
+After nearly ten minutes' silence Sam spoke again. "Well, then, I'd
+like to be a grocer," and straightway pulled furiously.
+
+"What?" gasped Christopher, feeling the bottom story of his card house
+tottering to a fall.
+
+"It's like this. I don't mind telling you--much--though I've never
+told nobody before. When I was a bit of a chap, mother, she used to
+take me out shopping in the evenings. We went to pokey little shops,
+but we used to pass a fine, big shop--four glass windows--it has six
+now--and great lights and mahogany counters and little rails, and
+balls for change, tiled floor, no sawdust. Every time I saw it I says
+to myself, 'When I'm a man I'll have a place like that.' I tried to
+get a job there, but I couldn't--they made too many family inquiries,
+you see," he added bitterly; "well, if I could get 'prenticed to a
+place like that ... might be head man some day...." He began
+whistling with forced indifference, queerly conscious that the whole
+of his life seemed packed in that little boat--waiting. The boat had
+drifted into a side eddy. Christopher sat with his head on his hands,
+wondering with his surface consciousness if the planks at his feet
+were three or four inches wide, but at last he brushed aside the last
+card of his demolished palace and recalled his promise to Caesar to
+leave Sam as free and unbiased in choice as he had been himself.
+
+"That would be quite easy to manage," he said with assumed heartiness,
+"it's--only too easy. Only you must be a partner or something. Oh, oh.
+A white apron. I'll buy my tea and bacon of you when I've a house of
+my own!"
+
+"All right," grinned Sam. "I'll have great rows of red and gold
+canisters and--and brass fittings everywhere--not your plated stuff
+for me--solid brass and marble-topped counters. But it won't come
+off," he added dejectedly, "things like that never do."
+
+"But it will," persisted Christopher impatiently, "just as my going to
+Dusseldorf is coming off."
+
+"You don't get 'prenticed for nothing," was the faithless rejoinder.
+
+Christopher joggled the boat and shouted: "You sinner, if you won't
+take my word for it I'll smash you."
+
+"All right--keep cool, I'm only having you on, Chris. Oughtn't we to
+turn now?"
+
+They expended their excitement and emotion in rowing furiously, and
+landed again at Maidenhead in time for tea. Then Christopher broke the
+further news to Sam that he was to return with him to Aston House and
+see Caesar. He overcame with difficulty Sam's reiterated objections,
+and they walked from Paddington, Christopher keeping a strict guard
+over Sam lest he should escape.
+
+But Sam's objections were more "code" than genuine. He was really
+anxious to hear the wonderful news confirmed by more responsible lips
+than Christopher's--not that he disbelieved his intentions, but he
+still doubted his powers. He grew very silent, however, as they turned
+in at the beautiful iron gates of Aston House. He had never managed to
+really connect his old friend with this wonderful dignified residence
+that he knew vaguely by sight. He had had dim visions of Christopher
+slipping in by a side entrance avoiding the eyes of plush-breeched
+lords-in-waiting. But here was that young gentleman marching calmly in
+at the big front doors nodding cheerfully to the sober-clad man
+waiting in the hall who called Christopher "Sir."
+
+Sam successfully concealed under an expression of solid
+matter-of-factness the interest and curiosity that consumed him. He
+looked straight before him and yet saw all round. He accepted the
+whole calmly, but he wanted to sit down and stare.
+
+Christopher explained that they were to have dinner together in his
+own sitting-room as soon as they had seen Aymer.
+
+They went through the swing doors down the long corridor leading to
+Aymer's room, and Christopher stopped for a moment near a window.
+
+"I never come down here in this sort of light," he said with a little
+catch in his voice, "without thinking of the first evening I came. How
+big it all seemed and how quiet."
+
+"It is quiet," said Sam in a subdued whisper.
+
+In another moment they were in Aymer's room.
+
+"Hullo, Caesar. Here we are, turned up like bad pennies."
+
+Christopher pulled Sam across the room to the sofa. Sam would have
+been not a little surprised had he known that it cost Aymer Aston a
+great deal more effort to see a new face than it cost him to look at
+this Caesar of whom he had heard so much.
+
+The "code" slipped from his mental horizon and left him red and
+embarrassed, watching Christopher furtively to see what he would do.
+
+"Here's Sam, Caesar. I've told you all about him and he may just have
+heard your name mentioned--possibly--" laughed Christopher seating
+himself on the sofa and indicating a chair to his friend.
+
+Aymer held out his hand.
+
+"Yes, I've heard of you, Sam. Sit down, won't you?"
+
+Sam sat down, his hands on his knees, and tried to find a safe spot on
+which to focus his eyes.
+
+"Now, isn't it a jolly room," began Christopher triumphantly, "didn't
+I tell you?"
+
+"It's big," said Sam cautiously.
+
+"Christopher, behave yourself. Don't mind his bad manners, Sam. It's
+sheer nervousness on his part, he can't help it."
+
+A newspaper was flung dexterously across his face.
+
+"Which gives point to my remark," continued Aymer, calmly folding it.
+"Well, have you enjoyed your day? Madness, I call it, the river in
+March!"
+
+Christopher plunged into an account of their jaunt to which his
+companion listened in complete bewilderment, hardly recognising the
+simple pleasures of their holiday in their dress of finished detail
+and humour.
+
+"Is that a true account?" asked Aymer, catching the tail of a broad
+grin.
+
+"I didn't see the water-rat dressing himself, or the girl with the red
+shoes," said Sam slowly. "My, what a chap you are, Christopher, to
+spin a yarn. Wish I could reel it off to mother and the kids like
+that."
+
+He found himself in a few minutes discoursing with Aymer on the
+variety and history of his family. It was not for some minutes or so
+that the great subject was approached.
+
+"I suppose," said Aymer at last, "I need not ask if you and
+Christopher have been discussing his little plan for your future. What
+do you think of it, Sam?"
+
+Christopher got up and walked to the window. Minute by minute a sense
+of overwhelming disappointment and shame obliterated the once
+plausible idea. It was not only an opportunity missed, it was wasted,
+thrown away. What glory or distinctions, what ambitions could be
+fulfilled in the narrow confines of a grocer's shop--a nightmare
+vision of an interminable vista of red canisters, mahogany counters,
+biscuit boxes and marble slabs, swam before his eyes. It was no use
+denying it. It was a cruel disappointment ... and what would Caesar
+think?
+
+Meanwhile Sam, in answer to Aymer's questions, had stumbled out the
+statement he thought it a rattling fine thing for him and was very
+much obliged.
+
+"And you know your own mind on the point?" demanded Aymer, watching
+him closely.
+
+Sam coughed nervously. "Yes, I always knew what I wanted to be. I told
+him," with a backward jerk of his head towards Christopher.
+
+This was better than Aymer had expected. A boy with an ambition and a
+mind of his own was worth assisting.
+
+"Well, what is it. Will you tell me too?"
+
+Sam looked at him out of the corner of his shrewd eyes. "It's you as
+is really doing it, sir?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It's like this," began Sam, hesitating; "it costs money,--my top
+ambition; but it's a paying thing and if anyone would be kind enough
+to start me on it I'd work off the money in time. I know I could."
+
+"I'm afraid Christopher hasn't quite explained," said Aymer quietly;
+"it's not a question of investing money on your industry. I don't
+expect him to pay back the cost of starting him in life. You are to
+start on precisely the same ground."
+
+Sam got red. "He--he belongs to you--it's different," he began.
+
+"What is your ambition?"
+
+"Grocery business. I've told him. Ever since I was a bit of a chap
+that high I've wanted it. I never could get a job in a shop, but if I
+was regularly apprenticed now--if that wasn't too much?"
+
+Aymer's glance meandered thoughtfully to the distant Christopher,
+still staring out of the window; a shadow of a smile rose to his
+lips.
+
+"Yes, that would not be difficult to manage, Sam. How old are you?"
+
+"Over sixteen, sir. There's money in grocery, sir. I could pay it
+back. I'm sure I could."
+
+Aymer lay still, thinking. "What sort of schooling have you had? Not
+much? Passed the fifth standard young?"
+
+"But it takes a long time for a 'prentice to work up," said Sam,
+watching him eagerly.
+
+"I'm thinking of another way," said Aymer slowly. "Christopher."
+
+He rejoined them, standing by the grate and kicking the logs into
+place. He did not look at Aymer.
+
+"Sam has been telling me of his wishes," said Aymer. "I think them
+quite excellent, but I've not quite decided on the best way to carry
+them out. Go away and get your dinner and come back to me
+afterwards."
+
+The boys departed, and once in Christopher's den, the host turned to
+his guest questioningly.
+
+"Well, what do you think of Caesar?"
+
+"He's a stunner, a jolly sight more sensible than you, Chris. But I
+say," he added in a grumpy, husky voice, "is he always like that?"
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"On a sofa. Lying down."
+
+"Yes," said Christopher shortly. He had become almost as sensitive on
+that point as Aymer himself.
+
+"He must get a bit tired of it. Didn't he ever walk?"
+
+"Yes, of course. It was a shooting accident. Shut up, Sam, we all hate
+talking of it."
+
+The dinner that was served immediately somehow impressed Sam more than
+any other event of the day. He had occasionally had a meal in a
+restaurant with Christopher, and once had been in a dining-room at an
+hotel, but it all seemed different to this intimate, comfortable
+dinner. The white napery, the shining silver and delicate glass and
+china, the serving of the simple meal was a revelation of his friend's
+life, for Christopher took it all as a matter of course and was
+unabashed by the presence of the second footman who waited on them.
+
+There was soup, and cutlets in little paper dresses, tomatoes and
+potatoes that bore no resemblance to the grimy vegetables Sam
+dispensed daily. Then came strange bird-shaped things, about the size
+of sparrows which Christopher called chicken and which had no bones in
+them, cherry tart, with innumerable trifles with it, afterwards
+something that looked like a solid browny-yellow cake, which gave way
+to nothing when cut, and tasted of cheese. Finally there was fruit,
+that was a crowning point, for Sam knew what pears cost that time of
+year, and said so.
+
+Christopher laughed. "These come from Marden," he explained. "Marden's
+noted for pears; they have storages of different temperatures and keep
+them back or ripen them as wanted. The fire's jolly after all, isn't
+it?"
+
+He stretched out his long legs to the fender, a very contented young
+Sybarite for the moment.
+
+"I say, Chris," said Sam abruptly, "I must tell you though you'll
+think it pretty low of me. But after you came and told us you were
+living here with Mr. Aston I used to ask people about him. One day I
+came round here and ... somehow I never took it in. I knew in a way
+you lived here, but I didn't know it was like this...." He stumbled
+over his words in an embarrassed fashion.
+
+"Like what?" demanded Christopher shortly.
+
+"Well, I thought you was here like a sort of servant--not with them
+exactly--I see now, I never took it in before--you with your own rooms
+and walking in at the front door and ordering dinner and them blokes
+in the hall saying 'sir' to you--oh, lor'."
+
+"I told you they had adopted me," said the other, frowning and rather
+red.
+
+"I ought to have taken it in, but I didn't," continued Sam humbly,
+"and then you ask me here--and are going to give me a chance--Oh,
+lor',--what's it all for, I want to know? What does it mean?"
+
+Christopher got up and walked away. Had Sam but known it, his chance
+in life was in dire peril at that moment. Seldom had Christopher felt
+so angry and never had he felt so out of touch with his companion. Why
+on earth couldn't Sam take his luck without wanting reasons. It was so
+preposterous, in Christopher's eyes, to want any. In the old days Sam
+had been ready to share his scant pennies and toys with his small
+friend. The offer of a ride in a van from the warehouse where Sartin
+senior worked would have included both of them or neither. What was
+the difference? What was the use of having plenty if not to share it
+with a friend?
+
+To his credit he did not allow Sam to guess his irritation, but
+suggested a return to Caesar's room.
+
+"Didn't it take you an awful long time to get used to all this?"
+inquired Sam, as he followed him.
+
+"I forget. No, I don't though. I hated it rather at first, the clothes
+and collars and having to change and be tidy, and all that, but I soon
+got used to it. Here we are."
+
+Mr. Aston was there too now. Sam was duly introduced and behaved with
+great discretion. He was far less abashed by Mr. Aston than by Aymer,
+whose physical condition produced a shyness not inherent in the
+youth.
+
+Mr. Aston talked to him in a friendly gossiping way, then looked
+across at Aymer with a faint nod.
+
+Aymer unfolded his scheme of carrying out Sam's ambitions to a
+fruitful end. He was to go for a year to a commercial school, and
+after that to be put into a good firm as pupil or 'prentice with a
+chance of becoming a junior partner with a small capital if he did
+well.
+
+"If you don't do well, of course it's off," concluded Aymer, rather
+wearily, "the future is in your hands, not ours: we only supply an
+opportunity."
+
+Sam said stolidly he quite understood that: that he was much obliged,
+and he'd do his best.
+
+"It will be a race between you," remarked Mr. Aston, looking from one
+boy to the other, "as to whether you become a full-fledged grocer
+first or Christopher a full-fledged engineer."
+
+But late that night when Mr. Aston was bidding Aymer good-night, he
+remarked as he stood looking down at him:
+
+"You have done a good piece of road-making to-day, old man."
+
+"No, I haven't," retorted Aymer, rather crossly. "I've only supplied
+material for someone else to use if they like."
+
+"Just to please Christopher?"
+
+But Aymer did not answer that. Mr. Aston really needed no answer, for
+he knew that long ago Sam's mother had made smooth a very rough piece
+of road for another woman's feet, and that woman was Christopher's
+mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A thin, sickly-looking woman in a dingy black dress sat by the
+roadside with a basket of bootlaces and buttons at her feet. She
+rested her elbows on her knees and gazed with unseeing eyes at the
+meadowland below.
+
+The burst shoe, the ragged gown, and unkempt head proclaimed her a
+Follower of the Road, and the sordid wretchedness that reached its
+lowest depth in lack of desire for better things, was a sight to force
+Philanthropist or Socialist to sink differences in one energetic
+struggle to eradicate the type. If she thought at all it was in the
+dumb, incoherent manner of her class: at the actual moment a vision of
+a hat with red flowers she had seen in a shop window flickered across
+her mind, chased away by a hazy wonder as to how much supper
+threepence halfpenny would provide. That thought, too, fell away
+before a sudden, shrewd calculation as to the possible harvest to be
+gleaned from the two people just coming over the brow of the hill.
+
+These two, a boy and a young man, were walking with the swinging step
+and assurance of those who have never bent before grim need.
+
+"Young toffs," she decided, and wondered if it were worth while
+getting up or not.
+
+The young man was listening eagerly to the equally eager chatter of
+his companion, and they walked quickly as those who were in haste to
+reach a goal until they were level with the tramp woman, who watched
+them with speculative eyes. The boy, who was about twelve years old,
+was as good a specimen of a well-trained, well-nurtured boy as one
+might find in the country, the product of generations of careful
+selection and high ideals, active, brimming over with vitality and
+joyousness, with clear-cut features perhaps a trifle too pronounced
+for his age. But the elder of the two, who was twenty-one and might by
+appearance have been some few years older, was a far stronger type.
+There was a certain steady strength in the set of his square head, in
+the straight look of his dark eyes. It was a face that might in time
+be over-stern if the kindly humorous lines of the mouth should fade.
+The tramp woman saw nothing of this. She only observed their
+absorption in each other and abandoned hope of adding to her meagre
+fortune.
+
+Max Aston's quick blue eyes saw her and were averted instantly, for
+she was not a pleasing object. But at sight of her the shadow of some
+dominant thought drove every expression from his companion's face but
+pity: and the pity of the strong for the weak lies near to reverence.
+
+He crossed the road abruptly, his hand in his pocket. Max dawdled
+after him. The woman looked up with awakened interest.
+
+"It's a long road, kind sir, and poor weather," she began in a
+professional drawl, and then stopped. The young face looking down on
+her had something in its expression to which she was not accustomed.
+It was as if he checked her begging for very shame. She noticed dully,
+he held his cap in his hand.
+
+He said nothing at all, but dropped a coin in her hand and went on,
+followed by Max, who was a little puzzled.
+
+The woman looked after them and forgot she had not thanked him. She
+wished the moment would repeat itself and the young gentleman stand
+before her again. She had not taken it all in--taken _what_ in, she
+hardly knew.
+
+She looked at the coin and it gleamed yellow in her hand. It was half
+a sovereign. Oh, what luck, what luck! It was a mistake of course--he
+had thought it was a sixpence no doubt, but he had gone, and she had
+it.
+
+A vista of unlikely comforts opened before her, even the hat with red
+flowers was possible. It was careless of him though.
+
+She got up suddenly and looked down the hill. The two were still in
+sight--the boy had stopped to tie his boot-lace.
+
+She looked at the half-sovereign again, and then set off at a
+shuffling slipshod trot after them. They had resumed their walk before
+she reached them, but the boy looking back, saw her, and told the
+other, who wheeled round sharply, frowning a little.
+
+"'Ere, please sir, I wants to see yer," she gasped, out of breath,
+choking a little with unwonted exertion. Christopher went back to her
+and waited gravely. She opened her hand and the half-sovereign glinted
+again in the light.
+
+"Expect yer made a mistake, didn't yer, sir?" she asked in a hoarse
+whisper, and saw a wave of hot colour under his brown skin.
+
+"No," he said awkwardly, "I hadn't anything else. It was good of you
+to trouble to come though. Go and get some new boots and a good
+supper. It's bad going on the roads in autumn. I _know_, I've done
+it."
+
+She gasped at him bewildered, her hand still open.
+
+"Yer a gentleman, yer are,"--her tone hesitated as it were between the
+statement of a plain fact and doubt of his last words.
+
+"Winchester is three miles on. You can get decent lodgings out by the
+Station Road to the left as you go under the arch. Good-bye." He
+raised his hat again and turned away. The woman looked after him, gave
+a prolonged sniff and limped back up the hill.
+
+Max looked at Christopher out of the corner of his eye, a little
+doubtfully. He had not come near, fastidiousness outweighing
+curiosity.
+
+"What did she want--and why did you take your hat off?"
+
+Christopher grew hot again.
+
+"Oh, she's a woman, and my mother and I tramped, you know."
+
+Max did not know, and intimated that Christopher was talking rot.
+
+Christopher decapitated a thistle and explained briefly, "Caesar
+adopted me straight out of a workhouse. My mother and I were tramping
+from London to Southampton, and she got ill at Whitmansworth, the
+other side of Winchester, and died there. The Union kept me till Mr.
+Aston took me away. I thought everyone knew."
+
+Embarrassment and curiosity struggled for the mastery in the young
+aristocrat by his side.
+
+"And you really did tramp?" he ventured at length.
+
+"Yes, for a time, but we were not like that. My mother was--was a
+lady, educated, and all that, I think, only quite poor. She understood
+poor people and tramps. We used to walk with them, talk to them. They
+were kind."
+
+"And if Caesar hadn't adopted you?"
+
+"I should be a workhouse porter by now, perhaps," laughed Christopher
+lightly and then was silent. A picture of the possible or rather of
+the inevitable swam before his eyes; a picture of a hungry, needy soul
+compassed by wants, by fierce desires, with the dominant will to
+fulfil them and no means, and the world against him. He did not reason
+it out to a logical conclusion, but he saw it clearly.
+
+Max concluded the subject was not to be discussed and went on with an
+explanation of why Christopher had not been met in state after four
+years' absence.
+
+"The motor was to come for you, but it's gone wrong, and Aymer said
+you'd rather walk than drive, and we were not quite certain of the
+train. Do you really hate driving, Christopher?"
+
+"Yes, I always think the horses will run away. Aymer knows that. Is it
+really four years since I was here, Max?"
+
+"Yes, at Christmas. You never came down when you were in town two
+years ago. It was a beastly shame of you."
+
+"I'd only two months and Caesar wanted me. That was before I went to
+Switzerland, wasn't it? They know something about road-making there,
+Max, but I've learnt more in France."
+
+"And all about motors, too?" questioned Max eagerly. "Can you really
+drive one?"
+
+Christopher laughed. "I've won a race or two, and I've got a
+certificate. Perhaps it won't pass in England."
+
+"Will you teach me to drive? I just long to: but St. Michael says
+no--though he doesn't mind Geoffry Leverson teaching me to shoot. He's
+home now, you know, and comes over most days, and when Patricia won't
+play golf, he takes me shooting."
+
+"Patricia's taken to golf then?"
+
+"Yes. Geoffry says she's splendid, but I expect that's just to make
+her play up."
+
+They had turned off the highroad now and were in the fields following
+a path on the side of the sloping meadows. The mist that hung over the
+river did not reach up to them and Christopher could see the thick
+foliage of the woods opposite, splashed with gold and russet, heavy
+with moisture. The warm damp smell of autumn was in the air. He took a
+long breath and squared his shoulders.
+
+"It's good to be back. To think of its being four whole years."
+
+"And two since you've seen any of us. Are you going away again,
+Christopher?"
+
+"In the spring. There's St. Michael."
+
+He was waiting by a stile leading into a wood that gave quicker access
+to Marden Court, and he came forward to meet them with undisguised
+pleasure.
+
+Charles Aston had rendered but small homage to time. He was as erect
+and thin as ever, hair perhaps a little white, but the kind eyes had
+lost nothing of their penetrating quality.
+
+Christopher's welcome could not have been warmer had it been his own
+father. Max went ahead to find Charlotte and left the two to come on
+together.
+
+"How is Caesar?" demanded Christopher, the moment they were alone.
+
+"Can't you wait for his own report?"
+
+"I want yours." There was an urgent insistence in his voice, and Mr.
+Aston looked at him sharply.
+
+"Well, he is decidedly better since he came down here, and I want him
+to stay, Christopher, to give up London in the end perhaps
+altogether."
+
+"He has not been well then?"
+
+"I have not thought so: but what made you suspicious, my dear boy?"
+
+"His letters have been over-witty and deliberately satirical. Just the
+sort of things he says when something is wrong."
+
+Mr. Aston nodded.
+
+"Yes, I felt that. There seemed nothing physically wrong, but I felt
+he must have more people round him."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Oh, I stay here too, and go up and down when needs must."
+
+"And the Colonial Commission? How will it get on without you?"
+
+"Oh, they easily found a better man. As I explained to Caesar, I was
+only asked as a compliment," he answered simply.
+
+Christopher kept to himself his dissent from this, and was silent a
+moment, thinking how this man's life was spent to one end; and
+desirable as he felt that end to be, he was of age now to feel a tinge
+of regret for all that had been and still was sacrificed to it. An
+infinitesimal sacrifice of personal feeling and convenience was
+demanded of him now, if he were to second St. Michael's attempt to
+keep Aymer from Aston House and teach him to permanently regard Marden
+Court as home, for dearly as Christopher loved Marden it was only
+there he was awake to the apparently indisputable truth that he was
+not one of that dear family who had done their best to make him forget
+once and for all that obnoxious fact. His sense of proprietorship in
+Aymer and of Aymer's in him was undeniably stronger in town than in
+the country, and this not entirely because Nevil was to all intents
+master of Marden, but rather that there Aymer himself was less
+isolated, merged more into the general family life, and became again
+part of the usages and traditions of his own race.
+
+Mr. Aston, without actually speaking the words, had conveyed to
+Christopher his own dread lest some day Aymer might be left alone,
+stranded mentally and physically in the great silent London house that
+was their home by force of dear companionship. Christopher saw it in a
+flash, saw it so clearly that he involuntarily glanced at his
+companion to assure himself of the remoteness of that dread chance.
+Hard on this thought pressed the knowledge that neither of these two
+men who had done so much for him made the least claim on his life or
+asked ought of him but success in his chosen line--and that knowledge
+was both sweet and bitter to him.
+
+"Caesar will be far better satisfied when you are actually started at
+work," Mr. Aston went on. "He lives in your future, Christopher, he is
+more impatient for this training period to be over than you
+yourself."
+
+"Because I am training and have no time to think. The first real step
+is coming. I have a good chance, only I must tell him first."
+
+He quickened his steps insensibly, for the thought of Caesar waiting
+was like a spur even to physical effort, and even so his mind outraced
+his feet, till it came full tilt against a girl coming directly from
+its goal and momentarily obliterating it by her very presence.
+
+"Oh, Christopher, Christopher," Patricia cried, holding out both
+hands. "How long you have been! I began to think you never would come
+again!"
+
+Christopher, taking her hands, felt it was a long two years since they
+parted and that time had made fair road here meanwhile. His thoughts
+outpaced his feet no longer, but kept decent step with the light
+footfall beside him.
+
+Mr. Aston, following, noted it all, and first smiled and then sighed a
+little. The smile was for them and the little sigh for Aymer waiting
+within.
+
+He found, however, little reason to repeat his sigh during the next
+few weeks, for Christopher was in constant attendance on Aymer, and
+gave but the residue of his time to the rest of the little world. His
+suspicions as to Aymer's well-being vanished away, for the latter
+betrayed by no outward sign the sleepless nights and long days spent
+in wrestling with intangible dread of impending evil and the return of
+almost forgotten black hours. Indeed, Christopher's steady dependable
+strength and vigorous energy seemed to renew belief and confidence in
+the man with whom life had broken faith. He was jealously greedy of
+Christopher's company, though he sought to hide this under a mask of
+indifference, and he made a deliberate attempt to keep him near him by
+the exercise of every personal and social gift he possessed. It was
+not enough for him to hold his adopted son's affection by the bond of
+the past, it was not enough to be loved by force of custom, his
+present individuality struggled for recognition and won it.
+Deliberately, skilfully and successfully he bound Christopher to him
+by force of personality, by reason of being what he was as apart from
+all he had done.
+
+None of the household grudged him his triumph or resented their own
+dismissal from attendance in the West Room. The women-kind once more
+superfluous to Caesar's well-being, resumed their wonted routine with
+generous content.
+
+Patricia's routine appeared to consist very largely of golf in which
+she and Geoffry Leverson could undoubtedly give Christopher long odds.
+Christopher, however, was undaunted, and the few hours he did not
+spend in Aymer's company, he spent toiling round the links points
+behind Patricia, play she never so badly. Geoffry complained bitterly
+to Patricia in private that she was spoiling her game, but she,
+indifferent to her handicap, continued to play with Christopher and to
+ignore promised matches with Geoffry whenever her old playmate chose
+to set foot on the green.
+
+At length Geoffry could stand it no longer and protested loudly when
+Christopher challenged her, that it was the third time she had put off
+a return match. Christopher withdrew his challenge at once and
+declared he would infinitely rather watch a match. Patricia demurred
+and pouted, whereupon he sternly insisted that promises must be kept.
+
+She played Geoffry and beat him by one point, secured by a rather
+vicious putt, then lightly requesting him to take her clubs back to
+the Club House with his, she summoned Christopher to take her home.
+Geoffry had not protested again. He took early opportunity to
+challenge Christopher instead and reaped a small revenge of easy
+victories, half embittered, half enhanced by Patricia's plainly
+expressed annoyance with the vanquished one. He knew she would have
+condoled with him had he lost.
+
+So the weeks slipped by unnoticed and autumn merged into winter.
+Christmas came and went--with festivities in which both Patricia and
+Christopher took active part.
+
+Christopher read and studied, but did nothing definite, and the New
+Year slipped along with rapid, silent foot. It was Caesar who at length
+broke up the pleasant drifting interlude and he did it as deliberately
+as he did everything else, urged by his haunting desire to see
+Christopher finally committed to the future he had chosen.
+
+"Why don't you go and see those road experiments they are trying in
+Kent?" Aymer asked one day.
+
+"Frost-proof roads? They are no good. It was tried in Germany. What I
+would like is to run down to Cornwall and see how the Atlantic Road
+stands the winter, only it's such a beastly way down by train."
+
+"It would certainly interfere with golf?" returned Caesar drily.
+
+"I'm beginning to play. Leverson says if I work really hard I may do
+something in a few years. Patricia says I shan't even if I live to be
+as old as Methuselah; so I must stick to it to prove her wrong."
+
+"That's highly desirable, of course. All the same she might leave you
+a little leisure to play round with your hobby. You mustn't work too
+hard or Sam will beat you yet."
+
+"How is Sam?"
+
+"He came to see me before I left town. He is doing well. They will
+take him in as junior partner in a year or two. I always said he'd do
+better than you." He sighed profoundly.
+
+"What a pity you didn't adopt him instead of me," retorted Christopher
+teasingly. "Is it too late to exchange? Buy him a senior partnership
+and leave me a free lance."
+
+And because Aymer did not reply at once to his familiar nonsense, he
+turned quickly and surprised a strange look in the blue eyes, a
+fleeting, shadowy love, passionate, fierce, jealous. It lost itself
+almost as he caught it and Aymer drawled out in his indifferent tone:
+
+"It really might be worth considering. For then I could go back to
+London and he could come home every night. Besides, Sam really
+appreciates me."
+
+But it was Christopher who had no answer ready this time.
+
+The look he had surprised gripped his heart. It revealed something
+hitherto unguessed by him. He came and sat on the edge of the sofa,
+and though he spoke lightly as was his manner, his voice and eyes
+belied his words.
+
+"On the contrary, Sam does not appreciate you at all. He regards you
+as an erratic philanthropist with a crank for assisting deserving
+boys."
+
+"A just estimate."
+
+"Not at all. It is wrong in every particular."
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"You are not erratic; you are methodical to a fault. You are not a
+crank; therefore not a philanthropist. And you show a lamentable
+disregard to the moral qualities of those to whom you extend a helping
+hand."
+
+"Jealousy."
+
+"Jealousy of whom, please?"
+
+"Of Sam."
+
+Christopher considered thoughtfully.
+
+"I believe you are right," he returned at last in a tone of naive
+surprise. "How stupid of me not to have guessed before. I had always
+tried to think you helped him to gratify me. It was a great strain on
+my credulity. Now I understand."
+
+"It had nothing to do with you at all," retorted Caesar irritably,
+shifting his position a little, whereby a cushion fell to the ground.
+With a gust of petulance he pitched another after it, and then in
+rather a shamed way, told Christopher to ring for Vespasian to put the
+confounded things right.
+
+But Christopher did no such thing. He put his strong arm round Caesar,
+raised him, and rearranged the refractory cushions, talking the while
+to divert attention from this unheard-of proceeding.
+
+"I shall go to London to-morrow and study Sam in order to oust him
+from your fickle affections," he announced. "Seriously, Caesar. I ought
+to be running round seeing things a bit."
+
+And Caesar, having brought him to the conclusion he wished, signified
+his entire approval.
+
+The following morning when Christopher came in to bid Caesar good-bye,
+he found Mr. Aston also there, standing by the fire with a humorous
+smile on his face in evident appreciation of some joke.
+
+"Christopher," said Aymer severely, "I have something important to say
+to you."
+
+Christopher drew himself up to attention as he had learnt to do when
+under rebuke as a boy.
+
+"If you are going to make a habit of running up and down to town and
+the ends of the earth on ridiculous business and worrying everyone's
+life out with time-tables (it was notorious Christopher never
+consulted anyone about his comings and goings), you must understand
+you cannot use Renata's carriage and pair for your station work. Max's
+pony is not up to your weight, neither is the station fly. I find on
+inquiry my father occasionally requires his motor for his own use;
+anyhow, it is not supposed to get muddy. So you had better buy one for
+yourself."
+
+He held out a blank signed cheque.
+
+Christopher looked from one to the other. It was the dream of his life
+to possess a motor, but this free gift of one was overwhelming.
+
+"Of course," went on Caesar hastily, "I shan't give you a birthday
+present too. It's to get out of that, you understand. You are
+twenty-one, aren't you? And it's only half mine, the other half is
+from St. Michael. I don't know where your manners are, Christopher; I
+thought I had brought you up to be polite. Go and thank the gentleman
+nicely."
+
+Christopher turned to Mr. Aston, but he was beyond words. He could
+only look his overwhelming gratitude.
+
+"It's not I," said that gentleman, hastily. "I only told Caesar I'd
+like to go shares--the lamps or bells or something. Get a good horn
+with a good rich tone."
+
+Christopher took the cheque with shaking fingers.
+
+"I can't thank you, Caesar, it's too big. Why didn't you let me earn
+it?"
+
+"I wanted to prove to you the justice of Sam's opinion of me. Hurry
+up; you'll miss your train if there is one at this hour at all."
+
+"You've not filled up the cheque."
+
+"Not I. From what I know of your business methods you'll get what you
+want at half the price I should. I'm not going to let St. Michael
+fling away good money."
+
+In his excitement Christopher forgot to wait for Patricia, who had
+promised to walk to the station with him. (Caesar's complaint anent the
+horse vehicles was even more unfounded than his grievance over the
+time-table.) But seeing him start, she ran after him and made some
+candid and sisterly remarks on his behaviour and was only mollified by
+a full explanation of his unwonted state of elation. The rest of the
+walk was spent in discussing the merits of various species of motors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Christopher spent the whole of the day inspecting possible motors,
+perfectly aware all the time of the one he meant to purchase, but in
+no wise prepared to forego the pleasures of inspection. Sam was not
+free that evening, so he dined with Constantia Wyatt, whose elusive
+personality continued to remove her in his eyes far from relationship
+with ordinary women. She was going to a "first night" at His Majesty's
+Theatre as a preliminary to her evening's amusement, and her husband,
+honestly engrossed in work, seized on Christopher at once as an
+adequate substitute for his own personal escort. He would meet her
+with the carriage after and go with her to the Duchess of Z----, but
+it would be a great help to him to have a few early evening hours for
+his book; so he explained with elaborate care.
+
+"Basil is so deliciously mediaeval and quaint," Constantia confided to
+her young cavalier as the carriage drove off; "he quite seriously
+believes women cannot go to a theatre or anywhere without an escort,
+even in our enlightened age. I assure you it is quite remarkable the
+number of parties we attend together; people are beginning to talk
+about it. If it's impossible for him to come himself he always seems
+to have hosts of cousins or relations ready to take his place. Oh,
+charming people; but quite a family corps, a sort of 'Guard of
+Honour,' as if I were Royalty--and really, at my time of life."
+
+She turned her radiantly beautiful face to Christopher. She was indeed
+one of those beloved of time and it seemed to Christopher as he saw
+her in the crude flashing glare from the streets without, that the
+past ten years which had made of him a man had left her a girl still,
+but since he was as yet no adept at pretty speeches he kept the
+thought to himself and said shyly:
+
+"It is not a question of age at all."
+
+"You, too, think me incompetent to look after myself?"
+
+"It is not a matter of competence either, is it? I mean, one can
+easily understand that Mr. Wyatt is proud of being your...." He
+stopped lamely.
+
+"Finish your sentence, you tantalising boy."
+
+"Your caretaker, then," he concluded defiantly.
+
+"Delicious," she clapped her hands softly. "I thought you were going
+to say 'proprietor.'"
+
+"It is you who are the proprietor of the caretaker, isn't it?"
+
+"The new cadet is worthy his commission," she pronounced with mock
+gravity.
+
+"It is a great honour, especially since I am not one of the family."
+
+He never forgot this in her presence. It was as if an overscrupulous
+remembrance of hard days forced him to disclaim kinship with anything
+so finely feminine as Constantia Wyatt; as if he found no right of way
+from his own world of concrete fact into that delicate gracious world
+of illusions in which he placed her. Such barriers did not exist for
+her, however, and thence it came that it was to Constantia that
+Christopher spoke most easily of his relationship to the Aston
+family.
+
+She put aside his disclaimer now, almost indignantly.
+
+"You belong to Aymer. How can you say you do not belong to us, when
+you have been so good for him?"
+
+His main claim on them all lay in that, that he was and had been good
+_for_ the idolised Aymer Aston. He recognised it as she spoke and was
+content, for the proud generosity of his nature was built on a
+humility that had no underprops of petty pride.
+
+"That was quite unpremeditated on my part," he protested whimsically;
+"you are all far too good to me. I can never explain it to myself, but
+I accept it, and realise I am a real millionaire."
+
+Constantia Wyatt started slightly. Christopher noticed the diamonds on
+her hair sparkle as she leant forward.
+
+"How did you discover that?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"My fortune? I was only ten when I came to Caesar, but I must have been
+a very dense child indeed if I had not known even then that the luck
+of the gods was mine--if I had not been sensible of the kindness----"
+
+His voice was low also and he fell into his old bad habit of leaving
+his sentence unfinished--hardly knowing he had expressed so much.
+
+Constantia gave a sigh of relief, and Christopher again was only aware
+of the twinkling diamonds, of melting lines of soft velvet and fur, a
+presence friendly but unanalysable. They passed at that moment a
+mansion of a prince of the world of money, and she indicated it with a
+wave of her fan.
+
+"Supposing, Christopher, you could realise some of your imaginary
+fortune for _his_?"
+
+"Heaven forbid. Think how it was made."
+
+"The world forgets that."
+
+"You do not forget," he answered quickly; "besides it's much nicer to
+be adopted than to fight other people for fortune."
+
+"I thought all boys liked fighting."
+
+"Not if there's anything better to be done. A Punch and Judy show or a
+funeral will stop the most violent set-to. I've seen it times, when I
+was a boy in the street. Sam and I raised a cry one day of 'soldiers'
+to stop a chum being knocked down. Then we ran."
+
+"Oh. Christopher, Christopher, can't you forget it?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I don't want to. It wouldn't be fair to Caesar. Also I couldn't."
+
+"Some day you will marry, and perhaps she will rather you should
+forget."
+
+"No, she won't, she is far too fond of Caesar."
+
+He stopped abruptly. For one brief moment the great voice of the
+streets and the yellow glare died away; he was blinded by a
+bewildering white light that broke down barriers undreamed of within
+his soul. Then the actual comparative darkness of the carriage
+obscured it and he found himself again conscious of the scent of
+roses, the sheen of satin and soft velvet, and his heart was beating
+madly. He had stumbled over the unsuspected threshold, surprised the
+hidden temple of his own heart, and this, inopportunely, prematurely,
+and, to his everlasting confusion, in the presence of another.
+
+He clanged to the gates of his inner consciousness in breathless haste
+and set curb on his momentary shame and amazement. The break was so
+short his companion had barely time to identify the image disclosed
+when his voice went on with quiet deliberation.
+
+"Or will be when she appears. A case of 'if she be not fair to "he,"
+what care I how fair she be.'"
+
+Constantia with rare generosity offered no hindrance to the closing of
+the door and discreetly pretended she had not been aware it had
+opened. Yet she smiled to herself and decided it was quite a desirable
+image and very advantageous to Aymer. Also, she reflected with
+pleasure, she had predicted the result from Patricia's and
+Christopher's intimacy, to her father years ago.
+
+The piece at the theatre was a modern comedy which did not greatly
+interest him, indeed, he was more concerned in keeping his attention
+from that newly-discovered temple within than in unravelling the
+mysteries of the rather thread-bare plot of the play. Being, however,
+quite unaccustomed to dealing with this dual condition of mind it is
+to be feared he was a little "distrait" and mechanical of speech.
+Constantia allowed him the first act to play out his mood and then
+with charming imperiousness claimed his full attention, gained it, and
+with it, his gratitude for timely distraction.
+
+Half way through the play he remembered this was the theatre at which
+Mrs. Sartin and Jessie were employed. He mentioned the fact to Mrs.
+Wyatt, who remarked gravely their names were not on the programme.
+Christopher equally gravely explained quite briefly. If he found
+nothing surprising in his own interest in these friends of the past,
+he never made the error of imagining they would be of interest to
+newer friends. There was a certain independence in his attitude
+towards all affairs that touched him nearly, which even at this early
+age made him a free citizen of the world in which he chanced to move.
+This attitude of mind was more in evidence to-night than he had
+imagined. Personally, he quite appreciated the fact he was sitting in
+a box with one of the loveliest women in London, and that she was
+everything that was charming and nice to him, but it never occurred to
+him that half the men in the theatre would have given a big share of
+their worth to be in his place; he was almost childishly unconscious
+of the envious glances he earned. Constantia was not: neither was she
+blind to his attitude of personal content and impersonal oblivion. It
+amused her vastly, and she compiled an exceedingly entertaining letter
+to Aymer on the strength of it.
+
+"He handed me over to Basil in the vestibule afterwards," she
+concluded, "with the most engaging air of having been allowed a
+special treat and fully appreciating it, and departed straightway to
+conduct Mrs. Sartin, dresser at the theatre, to her house in the wilds
+of Lambeth. He owned it in the most ingenuous way, seeing nothing
+whatever of pathos in it. Does he lack sense of humour?"
+
+Aymer, ignoring the rest of the letter, refuted this query with pages
+of vigorous sarcasm, to the complete delight and triumph of his
+sister.
+
+Christopher, having ascertained from a suspicious doorkeeper that Mrs.
+Sartin would not be free for twenty minutes, cooled his heels in a
+dark, draughty passage with what patience he could.
+
+He seized on Mrs. Sartin as she came unsuspectingly down a winding
+stair, and bore her off breathless, remonstrating, but fluttering with
+pride, in a hansom.
+
+"I'm only up for a few days," he explained. "Sam dines with me
+to-morrow and I want you to come out somewhere in the afternoon.
+Crystal Palace, or wherever Jessie likes."
+
+Mrs. Sartin's face and Mrs. Sartin's person had expanded in the last
+few years and her powers of expressing emotion seemed to have expanded
+with her person. Disappointment was writ large on her ample
+countenance.
+
+"Well, now, if that isn't a shame and a contrariwise of purpose. I've
+taken a job, Mr. Christopher, for that blessed afternoon. I've
+promised to dress Miss Asty, who is making a debut at a matiny at the
+Court. Eliza Lowden, she was goin' to dress her, but she can't set a
+wig as I can."
+
+"What a nuisance. But, anyhow, Jessie isn't engaged, is she?"
+
+For an instant he had a glimpse of Mrs. Sartin's full face, dubious,
+questioning, even hostile, but to him it was merely the result of
+flickering light and conveyed nothing.
+
+"I don't rightly know," she said slowly, "maybe she doesn't care much
+for gadding about."
+
+"Rubbish," he retorted contemptuously, "if you can't come, Jessie must
+anyway."
+
+Mrs. Sartin held firmly to the carriage door and the oscillation of
+the cab caused her to nod violently, but it was not in assent to
+Christopher's proposition. She appeared to be turning something over
+in her slow mind.
+
+"I don't know but what I could arrange with Eliza," she remarked.
+
+"Of course you can, like a good woman; and you and Jessie come up to
+Aston House at one o'clock and say where you'd like to go, and we'll
+go."
+
+Martha demurred. "Mr. Aston won't like it."
+
+"Won't like what?"
+
+"Our comin' to 'is 'ouse, like as if we 'ad any claim on you."
+
+"Do I or you know Mr. Aston best?" he demanded imperiously. "Claim
+indeed. Martha, you dear old stupid, where would I be now, if you
+hadn't taken my mother in?"
+
+"That were just a chance, Mr. Christopher, because I 'appened to be
+comin' 'ome late and your pore ma was took bad on the bridge as I
+crossed, and bein' a woman what 'ad a family, I saw what was the
+matter."
+
+"What was it more than a chance that Caesar in looking for a boy to
+adopt stumbled on the son of someone he used to know?"
+
+Again the oscillation made Mrs. Sartin nod vigorously. She bestowed on
+her companion another of those shrewd, dubious glances, began a
+sentence and stopped.
+
+"Yes. What were you saying?" asked Christopher absently.
+
+"You've come quite far enough, Mr. Christopher," she announced, with
+the air of a woman come to a decision, "you just tell that man on the
+top to stop and let me out. Thanking you all the same, but I don't
+care to be seen driving 'ome this time of night and settin' folks
+a-talking. You set me down, there's a dear Mr. Christopher."
+
+She got her way in the matter of dismissing the cab, but not in
+dismissing Christopher, her primary desire, lest an indiscreet tongue
+should prompt her to say more than was "rightful," as she explained to
+Jessie.
+
+"For if the dear innocent don't see 'ow the land lays, it isn't for me
+to show 'im, and Mr. Aymer so good to Sam."
+
+"Maybe you are all wrong," said Jessie shortly.
+
+Mrs. Sartin sniffed contemptuously.
+
+The Sartins no longer inhabited Primrose Buildings, but were proud
+inhabitants of a decent little house in a phenomenally dull street,
+sufficiently near the big "Store" to suit Sam's convenience. Sam
+himself came to the door and, late as it was, insisted on walking back
+with Christopher into the region of cabs, and, becoming engrossed in
+conversation, naturally walked far beyond it.
+
+"This partnership business," began Sam at once, "I do wish, Chris,
+you'd get Mr. Aymer to make it a loan business. I'd be a sight better
+pleased."
+
+"I can't for the life of me see why," Christopher objected with a
+frown. "It's only a matter of a few hundred pounds, and if Caesar
+chooses to spend it on you instead of buying a picture or enamel, or
+that sort of toy, why should you object. It's not charity."
+
+"Then what is it?" demanded Sam, "because I'm not a toy. Don't fly out
+at me, Chris, be reasonable. I'm as grateful to him as I can be, and I
+mean to use the chance he's given me all I can. But this partnership
+business beats me. It's all very well for him to do things for you. Of
+course he couldn't do less; but how do I come in?"
+
+A drunken man reeled out of a house and lurched against Christopher,
+who put out his hand to steady him without a word of comment, and when
+the drinker had found his balance, he turned again to Sam with sharp
+indignation.
+
+"He could do a jolly sight less for me and still be more generous than
+most people's fathers. There's no 'of course' about it."
+
+Sam stared stolidly in front of him.
+
+"That's just it. It's one thing to do it for someone belonging to one,
+and another thing to do it for a stranger," he persisted.
+
+"Well, that's just how I feel, only I don't make a fuss. It's Caesar's
+way, and a precious good way for us."
+
+They parted at last with no better understanding on the vexed subject,
+and Christopher, once back at Aston House, sat frowning over the fire
+instead of going to bed. Why all of a sudden had this question of his
+amazing indebtedness to Aymer been so persistently thrust on him.
+Hitherto he had accepted it with generous gratitude, without question,
+had recognised no room for speculation, allowed no play to whispers of
+curiosity. It was Caesar's will. Now he was suddenly aware, however he
+might close his mind, others speculated; however guard his soul from
+inquisitiveness, others questioned, and it angered him for Caesar's
+sake. His mother had never spoken to him of the past, never opened her
+lips as to the strange sacrifice she had made for her unborn child,
+except once when they were hurriedly leaving London by stealth, after
+the episode with Martha Sartin's rascally husband. Mrs. Hibbault had
+remarked wearily: "I wonder, Jim, shall I spend my life taking you
+out of the way of bad men?"
+
+When he asked her if she had done it before she answered: "I took you
+from your father." It was the only time he remembered her mentioning
+that unknown father; he recollected still how her face had changed and
+she had hurried her steps, as if haunted by a new suspicion.
+
+It gave him quite unreasonable annoyance that these thoughts intruded
+themselves to-night, when he wanted to give his full attention to the
+wonder and glory of the discovery he had made in Constantia Wyatt's
+company. That was, indeed, a matter of real moment. How had he
+contrived to be blind to it so long? He had not reached the age of
+twenty-one without entertaining vague theories concerning love, and
+having definitely decided that it had nothing to do with the travesty
+of its name which had confronted him on his wanderings. Neither taste
+nor training, nor the absorbing passion for his work had left him time
+or wish to explore this field which roused only an impatient contempt
+when thrust on his notice. Of Love itself, as before stated, he held
+vague theories: regarding it rather as a far-off event which would
+meet him in future years and land him eventually at Hymen's feet. And
+here he found all such theories suddenly reversed. The first moment
+the idea of marriage was presented to his notice the vision of the
+only possible bride for him stood out with quite definite
+distinctness. Instead of Love being a prelude to the thought of
+Marriage, that thought had been the crashing chords that had opened
+his mind to Love. But the Love had been already there, unrecognised.
+He found he could no way now imagine himself as apart from Patricia.
+To eliminate her presence from his heart was to lose part of his
+individuality; to separate his practical life from her was as if he
+wantonly destroyed a limb. Away from her actual presence and before
+this dual conception of themselves he was of assured courage,
+thankfulness and strange joy, but the moment his thoughts flew to her
+in concrete form, to Patricia Connell at Marden Court, he experienced
+a reversion: his confidence was gone, the assured vision became a very
+far-away possibility, a glory which he might hardly hope to attain.
+
+Very slowly this latter aspect blotted out the first triumphant joy of
+his discovery. Mundane things, such as Renata Aston's wishes, Caesar's
+consent, and even the person of Geoffry Leverson interposed between
+Patricia and him. This mood had its sway and in turn succumbed to an
+awakening of his dormant will and every fighting instinct. Patricia
+must be his, was his potentially, but he recognised she was not his
+for the asking. He would have to acquire the right to say to Caesar, "I
+want to marry Mrs. Aston's sister." Aymer might easily make the way
+smooth for him, if he would. He had no reason then for believing he
+would oppose the idea. Yet Christopher knew that in the gamut of
+possible needs and desires the one thing he could not freely accept
+from Caesar's hands was his wife. His life was before him, before
+Patricia too. When he reached this point in his deliberation he made a
+sudden movement. The fire had gone out and it was very cold.
+Christopher decided it was time to go to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Jessie proved by no means averse to "gadding about," as her mother
+expressed it. She and Mrs. Sartin turned up punctually at Aston House,
+though laden with an air of desperate resolve. On their way they had
+both cheerfully concealed some tremulous qualms and neither had
+ventured to express a dormant wish that Mr. Christopher had chosen
+some other spot for lunch than the lordly, sombre, half-opened house.
+It was not until they stood beneath the great portico that their vague
+discomfort got the upper hand, and Mrs. Sartin agreed without demur to
+Jessie's suggestion that they should seek a smaller entrance. As they
+were turning away the great door swung open and Christopher came out.
+
+"How jolly of you to be so punctual," he cried, greeting them warmly.
+"Where were you off to? Did you think I wasn't at home because the
+blinds were down? They don't open all the house for me," he added,
+leading the way through the great hall. "I live on the garden side."
+
+Mrs. Sartin had no mind to hurry: she wanted to take in the solid
+beauties as she passed. Jessie plucked her nervously by the sleeve
+seeing Christopher was outpacing them, and terrified of being left in
+that labyrinth of corridor without a guide. However, once within the
+sunny little room with its homely comforts and Christopher's kindly
+self for host, they regained their wonted composure.
+
+The smallness of the staff left in charge at Aston House gave
+Christopher an excuse for dispensing with the services of Burton, the
+footman, and the meal was a great success. It never occurred to the
+host to think these good kind friends of his in any way out of place
+here. His sense of humour was quite unruffled, nay, he was even
+genuinely pleased to see the good, ample Martha, the strings of her
+black bonnet untied, her face wreathed in smiles, vigorously clearing
+out a tart dish, and Jessie's homely features lit up with passive
+enjoyment, her brown eyes shining beneath the ridiculous curls.
+
+They had chosen the Hippodrome for their afternoon's amusement, and
+there was plenty of time after lunch to show them some of the glories
+of Aston House. Christopher led them through the shrouded rooms, but
+the treasures he displayed to view were not so much those of artistic
+merit as those which had pleased his own boyish fancy years before.
+Passing down a corridor he stopped by a remote closed door. Jessie was
+examining some Wedgewood plaques a little way off. Christopher looked
+at Mrs. Sartin with a queer little smile.
+
+"When I was a kid," he said rather shamefacedly, "I used to play that
+my mother was going about the place with me. You see there were no
+women-folk, and the pretence seemed to help things. I used to make it
+seem more real by always starting here, and pretending that was her
+room. It was the only door that was always locked."
+
+"Lor', what a queer idea!" ejaculated Mrs. Sartin, gazing suspiciously
+at the closed door.
+
+Christopher laughed. "Oh, I've been in since; there's nothing there
+but newspapers, quite a dull little room. But it was an odd fancy. My
+feeling was so strong I used to take her round and show her things
+I've shown you to-day. I always wanted to show them to someone instead
+of the real treasures, which are rather dull, you know."
+
+Mrs. Sartin said again it was very queer. She followed Jessie and
+Christopher reluctantly with backward glances towards the door, full
+of puzzled suspicion. When they were again in the hall it was time to
+start for the Hippodrome, and there was a great deal of patting of
+hats and tying of strings before a Venetian mirror.
+
+But Aymer Aston's room, with its world-famed pictures, was unvisited.
+
+When the Hippodrome performance was over and he had seen his guests
+safely homeward, Christopher called on Constantia Wyatt and found her
+in. She seemed in no wise surprised to see him, but asked him promptly
+when he was going down to Marden.
+
+"I don't know," he said slowly, his eyes on the fire, "I don't think I
+shall go back yet."
+
+Constantia rang the bell and told the footman she was not at home, and
+then drew her chair up to the fire and made Christopher some fresh
+tea.
+
+"Is London proving so very attractive?" she inquired.
+
+"I shan't stay in town. I think I shall go abroad again. I want to
+think."
+
+"Dear, dear. Is Marden such a bad atmosphere for the intelligence?"
+
+He coloured up boy-like and then laughed.
+
+"There are too many clever people to help one think there. Also there
+is a man in Belgium trying some private road experiments. I want to
+help him."
+
+"What will Aymer say to it?"
+
+"He thinks I've been idle long enough."
+
+"And the man in Belgium will help you to think?"
+
+"I'm afraid that's my own job."
+
+Constantia rose and wandered round the room, vaguely touching a flower
+here and there and presently came to stand behind her visitor's chair.
+She was thinking how young he was, and how strong, and that Patricia
+was a fortunate girl. Her eyes were very soft and kind as she bent
+over his chair and touched his shoulder with her fingers.
+
+"Christopher, you are in love!"
+
+Very young indeed, was her inward comment on his startled wondering
+face turned to her.
+
+"How do you know?" he asked, making no denial of the fact. Denial
+would have savoured of disloyalty to his new kingdom.
+
+She laughed gently. "Don't you even know that? What a lot I could
+teach you if Aymer would hand you over. Listen, Master Christopher,
+love is the only thing men want to think about alone, just as it's the
+only thing a woman never wants to keep to herself. You could think to
+much better advantage at Marden but it's no use telling you so. You
+won't believe it."
+
+"I do believe it, only it's not a question of _my_ advantage, you
+see."
+
+"There spoke Aymer's pupil. Remember roads take a good deal of making
+and short cuts were made for--lovers."
+
+She returned to the fire and stood there looking at him with an
+interest that surprised herself: a tall, gracious presence whose
+knowledge of his secret hurt not one bit, so clearly did it lie within
+the realms wherein all gracious, tender women reign.
+
+Then she changed the subject quite abruptly, thrust it back into those
+hazy regions of speculation from which Christopher had so hardly and
+impatiently dragged it the previous night.
+
+"I wonder if your mother were alive, if she would be satisfied with
+you, Christopher, and if she would still want to make a socialist of
+you."
+
+"My mother?" he echoed dully.
+
+For a while he struggled with a strange inability to lay hold on the
+shadowy form he knew so well. He looked round the beautiful room that
+was but a setting to a lovely woman and then back at her. Why had she
+spoken of his mother? He again attempted to crystallise the thought of
+the dearly loved, defeated woman in the presence of her to whom the
+world denied nothing.
+
+"I can't do it," he said aloud with a quick breath.
+
+"Do what?" she queried swiftly, but got no answer.
+
+"Was my mother a socialist?" he asked presently with difficulty.
+
+"So I have always understood."
+
+"Who told you so?"
+
+"My father. I thought you knew that, Christopher, or I should not have
+mentioned it. All I know is, she chose to be poor rather than expose
+you to the dangers of wealth. I know nothing else."
+
+Christopher stood up. "Thank you," he said, "I believe I did know
+that, but I have never been reminded of it. I do not know her story: I
+suppose she did not wish me to know it, but I do know whatever she
+chose, whatever she did, it was chosen and done because it seemed to
+her the right course and therefore the only one she could take."
+
+Constantia nodded, still gazing at the fire.
+
+"Aymer's training on the top of that," she mused, "I suppose you are
+accounted for."
+
+He grew red and looked a boy again. "I should have much to account for
+if I failed them."
+
+"Them?" She swung round.
+
+"Caesar and my mother."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"And so you will go to Belgium and think?" she said lightly.
+
+"No, I shall go to Belgium and work."
+
+"You said _think_," she insisted.
+
+"I have thought here. I was not sure when I came, but I am now."
+
+"May I know what you have thought?"
+
+For a moment the strangeness of speaking to her like this held him
+dumb. How did it happen she should know so much and must know more,
+she who had been barely a real individual to him before? It bewildered
+and confused him. He did not understand that the unspoken passionate
+claim he made on one woman had broken the barriers between him and
+woman-kind, that because he loved Patricia Connell he could speak to
+Constantia Wyatt, for they stood together on holy ground.
+
+"You have every right. You helped me after all," he said doubtfully,
+but smiling "I ought not to have hesitated. Caesar is waiting for me to
+make roads, not to take short cuts."
+
+"You think love can better afford to wait than Caesar?"
+
+"I have my life before me."
+
+"And if you lose her?"
+
+"It is settled," he said simply.
+
+She drew in her breath. By every law of man he was right, and yet all
+the woman in her cried out against this decision as falseness to some
+other law imperfectly understood, but clamorous for recognition.
+Nevertheless how her heart went out to him for the quiet finality of
+that refusal to yield to a law not of his own making! She was proud he
+was so much the handiwork of Aymer, while she recognised the very
+weakness of his strength.
+
+"He will lose her," she mused as she sat alone when he had gone, "and
+it would break Aymer's heart if he knew, but he won't know. He has
+succeeded in making a man of him, but, oh, what a nice boy he would
+have been!"
+
+So Christopher turned his back on the great discovery and went to
+Belgium. Whereupon Patricia complained bitterly, but her golf
+improved, and Geoffry Leverson, who knew nothing of road-making,
+started on a very short cut indeed.
+
+The Roadmaker remained in Belgium longer than he expected and in the
+laboratory of a great man stumbled on the key of the discovery that in
+a few years was to make him famous from one end of Europe to the
+other.
+
+When the apple blossoms were again blushing pink across the land and
+the blue sky was piled high with dreams of love castles, Christopher
+remembered the short cut and abruptly announced his intention of
+returning home. He sent no warning of his coming, but arrived one day
+at Aston House with his beloved car. It was in his heart to continue
+his journey straight away, but thinking what pleasure it would give
+Aymer to watch the practical working of his experiment, he put aside
+the dictates of his desires and spent the day purchasing materials.
+Also he called on Constantia and found himself incomprehensibly making
+excuses for the delay. "I shall go down early to-morrow," he said; "it
+can make no difference, since they do not know I am in England."
+
+"No, I don't suppose it can," said Constantia thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Christopher flecked an imaginary speck of dust from the burnished
+metal of his car. He was all ready to start, but seeing a postman
+coming up the drive, waited to take down the latest delivery of
+letters, and as he waited a hansom drove up, and since his car
+occupied the portico, stopped at the side. A big form emerged with a
+jovial red face and wide shoulders. It was six years since Christopher
+had seen the man, but his name and personality and, above all, the
+antipathy with which he had formerly inspired him flashed with
+lightning vividness to his mind. Peter Masters glanced at Christopher
+with a momentary puzzled look and turned to ring the bell.
+
+"If you want to see Mr. Aston, Mr. Masters, he is at Marden, and Aymer
+also. I'm just going down."
+
+"Ah." The keen eyes searched him up and down. "I've seen you before;
+can't place you, though; you aren't Nevil's boy."
+
+"No, I'm----" Christopher hardly knew why he changed the form of his
+answer, or that he had. "I'm the boy Aymer adopted. You saw me about
+six years ago."
+
+"Oh, I remember. Christopher Aston, they call you. You did not like
+me. What have you done with that clever head of yours, eh?"
+
+Christopher carefully examined a nut on the car.
+
+"Well, never mind. When will Cousin Charles be back?"
+
+"Not until May if he can help it."
+
+"Not well?"
+
+"Quite well, thank you."
+
+Peter Masters stood biting his lip and considering. The footman
+brought out some letters which Christopher put in his pocket and then
+mounted.
+
+"Can I take any message for you?" he asked politely.
+
+"Are you going straight to Marden now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+Christopher devoutly hoped he was, but a sudden fear assailed him: he
+would not make the momentous journey in solitude. He answered somewhat
+indistinctly.
+
+"You might run me down; I must see Cousin Charles."
+
+"I should warn you it is a new road to me and I've had my car nearly a
+year; it's due to go wrong somehow, and I drive rather fast."
+
+"I expect you set sufficient value on your own life to insure mine."
+
+"It will be cold. You can't ride in that thin coat."
+
+"You pass the Carlton; I'm staying there. It won't delay us two
+minutes. What luck."
+
+He walked round and got into the car, oblivious of the trifling fact
+its owner had neither acquiesced nor expressed an enthusiasm over the
+luck.
+
+"I hope he is nervous," thought Christopher vindictively, "though
+there's not much chance of it. He hasn't much hair to stand on end,
+but I'll do my best to make it."
+
+Peter Masters rolled himself contentedly in the spare rug. "Ready," he
+said cheerfully.
+
+Christopher, however, made no attempt to start. He beckoned to the
+footman.
+
+"Fetch me the blue paper-covered book you'll find on the second
+left-hand shelf of the low book-case in my room, Burton."
+
+He waited immovable while the man went on the errand, being quite
+determined to start unprompted by Mr. Masters if he started at all.
+The old butler came out and acknowledged Mr. Masters's presence with a
+deferential bow. He addressed himself to Christopher.
+
+"Mr. Christopher, will you tell Mr. Aymer we've raised the Raphael in
+his room, as he said, four inches, but the paper is a little faded and
+it shows. What will he like us to do?"
+
+Christopher nodded. "All right, I'll tell him. I shall probably be up
+again next week."
+
+"We shall be glad to see you again, sir."
+
+Burton returned in indecorous hurry with the book. Christopher bade
+them good-bye in a friendly way and the car glided quietly down the
+drive out into the busy thoroughfare.
+
+"You are quite at home there," remarked Mr. Masters affably.
+
+"It happens to be my home."
+
+It was a very busy hour and the driver of the car might reasonably be
+excused if he were silent. At all events if Mr. Masters spoke,
+Christopher did not hear him. They slipped in and out of the traffic,
+glided round corners, slid with smooth swiftness along free stretches
+of road, crept gingerly across a maze of cross-ways and drew up at the
+Carlton.
+
+Peter Masters, who appreciated the situation and found humour in it,
+plunged into that Palace of Travellers and reappeared in an incredibly
+short time, coated for the occasion.
+
+"Now," he said cheerily, "we are ready for the fray--when you are
+ready, Master Christopher," he added with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+But Christopher's ill-temper had evaporated with the short wait. After
+all, the man was Aymer's cousin, and he couldn't help being a brute,
+and if he really wanted to see St. Michael perhaps it was a piece of
+luck for him that the postman was late. So he laughed and said a
+little shyly he hoped Mr. Masters would not mind his not talking till
+they were out of the streets.
+
+"I shall expect conversation with compound interest," returned the
+other good-humouredly.
+
+He was, however, quite quiet until Christopher turned into a narrow
+back street.
+
+"That's not your best way," said Peter Masters sharply.
+
+"I'm going to call on a friend," replied the driver without apology.
+
+They threaded their way through a maze of small ill-looking streets,
+slowly enough, for there were children all over the road; not
+infrequently a big dray forced them to proceed backwards. Masters
+noted that Christopher never expected the legitimate traffic should
+give way to him. They emerged at last on a crowded thoroughfare of
+South London, where small shops elbowed big ones and windows blazed
+with preposterous advertisements. There were trams too, and scarcely
+room for the big car between rail and pavement. Presently they stopped
+before a prosperous-looking grocery store. A white-aproned man rushed
+out with undisguised complacency to wait on the fine equipage.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Sartin if he's free," said Christopher, and waited
+quietly.
+
+In a minute Sam was with them, white-aproned, pencil behind ear. To
+Masters's amusement his companion greeted the young grocer with the
+familiarity of long friendship.
+
+"I heard from Jessie the other day," said Christopher when he had
+explained his appearance; "what about this man Cladsley? Is she going
+to marry him?"
+
+Sam looked down the street, a little frown on his face.
+
+"Jessie'd no business to write you. Cladsley's all right. Don't you
+worry about Jessie."
+
+"I'm not worrying," laughed the other, "I only wanted to be sure it
+was suitable and all that."
+
+"I'll look after Jessie." The words were ungracious, but Sam looked
+worried and uncertain. "You've done enough for us."
+
+"You old dog in the manger," persisted Christopher good-temperedly,
+"you'll never let me do anything for Jessie, and, after all, it was
+she who used to take my part when you fought me, Master Sam, and
+wouldn't let you bully me."
+
+Sam grinned. "Yes, it was always Jim that was in the right then. Don't
+you bother. Cladsley's a good sort if she would only make up her
+mind."
+
+"I gathered his job would be up soon and I thought I might find
+another for him if it's all straight with them. That's why I came to
+see you."
+
+Sam appeared still reluctant.
+
+"It's all beastly stuck-up pride on your part," concluded Christopher
+after more argument. "I expect you'll cut me next; you are getting too
+prosperous, Mr. Sartin."
+
+But they parted good friends, and the car re-threaded its way through
+the crowded streets out into a meaner, more deserted neighbourhood,
+till at length they emerged on a long empty straight road with small
+yellow brick houses on either side, as yet uninhabited.
+
+"What's the engaging young grocer's name?" asked Masters abruptly.
+
+"Sartin--Sam Sartin."
+
+"Known him long?"
+
+"We were children together."
+
+"Relations, perhaps?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why did he call you Jim?"
+
+"I used to be Jim."
+
+"James Aston?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I've forgotten," said Christopher very deliberately.
+
+Mr. Masters laughed genially. "I like a good liar. You don't want to
+tell me anything about yourself. Very likely you are wise, but all the
+same I am very curious to know all about you--who you are, and how you
+came to the Astons, and who was your mother, and when and where Aymer
+met her. You see," he added confidentially, "I used to be about with
+Aymer a good bit and I thought I knew all----" He stopped abruptly. If
+he were being purposely tactless he realised he had gone far enough.
+
+"I do not think Aymer ever met my mother. I am certain you haven't.
+Mr. Aston used to know her, and suggested Aymer's adopting me when he
+heard I was left stranded in a workhouse. I was just a workhouse boy.
+Now, are you satisfied as to my private history, sir?"
+
+"No," retorted the inquisitor good-humouredly as ever, "you must have
+had a father, you know."
+
+"It seems possible. I do not remember him."
+
+He began to resign himself to fate and this Juggernaut of a man who
+rolled other people's feelings flat with no more compunction than a
+traction engine.
+
+"Fathers are useful. You may want to remember, some-day."
+
+"I'm quite satisfied at present."
+
+"I'm not suggesting you have anything to complain of. Aymer doesn't do
+things by halves. Christopher is as much a family name as Aston, for
+example."
+
+Something in his tone caught Christopher's attention and he looked at
+him sharply. Peter Masters was gazing straight before him with that
+same cynical smile on his face it had worn when Christopher was first
+introduced to him six years ago.
+
+"I wonder why on earth they did that?" ruminated the Juggernaut.
+"Cousin Charles is capable of any unworldly folly, but Aymer was a man
+of the world once. It looks like colossal bluff."
+
+And then the meaning of all this swept over Christopher's mind like a
+wave of fire, scorching his soul, desecrating and humiliating the very
+mainspring of his life.
+
+Aymer's son! He knew Masters believed it as surely as if he had
+blurted it out in his own unbearable way, and it was not to save him,
+it was from no sense of decency Masters had not said it audibly.
+Christopher longed to fling the unspoken lie back to him, to refuse
+the collaboration of detail that the passing minutes crowded on his
+notice. He put on speed; tried to outstrip the evil thought of it, to
+think only of Caesar, the dear companion of his days, the steady
+friend, the unobtrusive mentor and guide. But a thought he could not
+outstrip slipped into his mind so insidiously and stealthily, he could
+not tell how or whence it came.
+
+"You only know Caesar; you never knew Aymer Aston of the silent past."
+
+Faster and faster rushed the car in futile attempt to outpace the
+whispered treason. The speed indicator stood at 40 and still mounted.
+
+"I should like to remark," said Peter Masters thoughtfully, "that I
+have not yet made my will and it would cause some inconvenience to a
+vast number of people to have several millions left masterless."
+
+"It's an open road," returned Christopher, "I know what I'm at. I
+expect I enjoy life as much as you do."
+
+He slowed down suddenly, however, to about twenty miles an hour to
+pass an old woman in a donkey cart, and the hateful thought swept on
+in advance apparently, for he overtook it again when their speed ran
+up ten points.
+
+Christopher had chosen a rather circuitous route which offered fewer
+villages than the general high-road. It was a glorious day, the banks
+were starry with primroses, and all the hedgerows, just bursting into
+green rosettes, were hunting ground for birds innumerable.
+
+Green emerald grass in water-meadows, fresh green growth on the
+hillside, and red bud and green promise hung from every tree. The
+crisp air whispered warnings of frosts still to come, but braced the
+nerve and gladdened the heart nevertheless, and called imperiously to
+youth to seek its kingdom. Christopher was at no pains to spare the
+nerves of the master of millions, and though he invariably crept
+through villages and towns sedately and drove with an eye for
+crossroads and distant specks on the white track before him, they
+swept through the open country with a breathless rush.
+
+How good it would have gone alone, Christopher thought savagely, and
+resentment rose high in his heart. He was going to meet Patricia for
+the first time with understanding eyes. In the past months his love
+had grown with steady insistence until the imperious voice of spring,
+singing in concord with it, had overridden the decision of his
+stubborn will, demanding surrender, clamorous for recognition, and now
+having allowed the claim he was again forced back on the unsolved
+question of his own history. It was as if some imp of mischief had
+coupled his love to the Past, and had left him without knowledge to
+loose the secret knot. The silence became intolerable for fear of the
+next words that might break it from his companion. It would be better
+to take control himself--so he slackened speed a little and had the
+satisfaction of hearing Peter Masters heave a relieved sigh.
+
+"The roads here need re-making," as they proceeded bumpily over a
+rather bad piece of ground.
+
+"For motors?"
+
+"For everything. A road should be easy going for motors, horses, and
+foot-passengers. Easy and safe."
+
+"How would you do it?"
+
+"A raised causeway for walkers; a road for carriages, and a track for
+motors. It only means so many yards more and there is plenty of land.
+Look at that turf--four yards of it. Might as well be road."
+
+"What are you going to make your roads of?"
+
+Christopher took a deep breath; the pace of the car increased a
+little.
+
+"That has to be found--will be found. It is a question of time."
+
+"And you mean to find it?"
+
+"A good many people mean to find it."
+
+Masters shook his head.
+
+"It won't pay you so well as iron, Master Christopher. My offer is
+still open."
+
+Christopher was so surprised that he nearly swerved into an unfenced
+pond they were passing.
+
+"It was very kind of you to make it again," Christopher managed to
+stammer out, adding with a bluntness worthy of Masters himself, "I
+never could understand why you made it at all."
+
+"Neither do I," returned Peter Masters with a laugh, "and I generally
+know what I'm at. Perhaps I thought it would please Aymer. As I told
+you just now, we were friends before his accident. I suppose you've
+heard all about that?"
+
+For a brief moment Christopher felt temptation grip him. He was
+convinced the man beside him knew the untold story, and at this
+juncture in his life he would give much to understand all those things
+he had never questioned or ventured to consider. Then recognising
+disloyalty in the very thought, he hastened to escape the pitfall. It
+was no use to take half measures with this man, however, so he lied
+again boldly.
+
+"Of course I know," and went back again to safer ground. "Whatever
+your reasons, it was good of you to think of me and kinder still to
+renew your offer. I expect you will think me a silly fool of a boy to
+refuse it again."
+
+"Not exactly; but a boy brought up by an Aymer Aston the second."
+
+"That is sufficient luck for one boy to grab out of life."
+
+Peter Masters chuckled. "I take it, young man, you'd rather be
+fathered by Aymer than by me, eh?"
+
+Christopher muttered a very fervent affirmative between clenched
+teeth, which did not appear to reach his hearer's ears, for as Masters
+finished his own sentence he shot a sudden, sharp, puzzled look at
+Christopher, and his teeth shut together with a click. He spoke no
+more and when Christopher hazarded a remark he got no answer.
+
+The glory of the day was at its height when Marden came in sight; the
+whole world seemed to have joined in a peon of thanksgiving which for
+the moment drowned the unwonted echoes in Christopher's heart that
+Peter Masters's hard voice had awoken.
+
+Youth was his, Love was his, and Patricia was to be his, and he was
+going to see her. He covered the distance from the lodge gates to the
+house in a time that taxed his companion's nerve to the uttermost and
+bid fair to outpace even the throbbing, rushing pulse of spring that
+filled the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Patricia was in the orchard, and not only in the orchard, but of it,
+for she was comfortably perched on a low bough of an ancient hoary
+apple tree. She had a volume of Robert Bridges's poems in her hand and
+a thirst was on her to be at the edge of a cliff and look over into
+blue space below. The secluded orchard with its early crown of pink
+blushes, the serene shut-in valley screened from cold winds and
+cradled between the chalky highlands, weighed on her. She looked
+upwards through the dainty tracery of soft green and pink to the sky
+above, delicately blue with white clouds racing over it. There was air
+up there, free and untrammelled. Patricia sighed and then laughed at
+herself, for it was good, even here in the narrow orchard, life with
+its coming possibilities, its increasing riches. She was glad to be
+alone at that moment if only to share a thought with the poet who at
+this period held sway over her mind.
+
+The previous evening had been one of great moment to her and she was
+joyfully thankful to find that it obscured and clouded no particle of
+the daily simple joy of her existence. She had claimed this day to
+herself, free from all new issues to prove this point, and her heart
+sang with content for what had been, was, and would be.
+
+The orchard gate clicked, and looking through the intervening boughs
+and leaflets, she saw Christopher coming across the grass towards her
+with his even, swinging step.
+
+In her rough grey dress she was as part of the rough tree herself. Her
+golden head and the delicate lovely colouring of her face rivalled
+the tree's darling blossoms, so Christopher thought when he reached
+her. He came straight to her through the maze of old and young trees
+and had the exquisite joy of seeing her flush with surprise and
+pleasure at sight of him. Here indeed she felt was the one addition to
+her day that she needed. She did not descend from her perch, and it
+was his hand which steadied her there when excitement imperilled her
+throne.
+
+"To come down on us without warning like this!" she expostulated,
+smiling down at him. "Why, we might have had no leisure to see you or
+luncheon to give you! When did you actually come?"
+
+"Half an hour and five minutes ago. I've seen Caesar and St. Michael,
+and I've had luncheon."
+
+"And have you come to stay?"
+
+"I don't know yet." He leant his arm on the bough where she sat, which
+was of exactly convenient height.
+
+"The amount of leisure you seem to have on hand," said Patricia
+severely, "is outrageous, considering how hard the rest of the family
+work."
+
+"Especially Nevil," laughed Christopher.
+
+"Especially Nevil. We have not sat down to a meal with him for three
+weeks. He nearly walked on Max's puppy last week and he has forgotten
+Charlotte's existence except as a penwiper--she went in to him one
+morning with a message and came out with an ink smudge on her red
+dress--she _said_ it was his pen--the dress is the same colour as the
+penwiper, so she may be right. He paid no attention to the message."
+
+"Well, at present, if you take the trouble to go into the Rosery you
+will find Nevil lying by the fountain catching goldfish with Max. I do
+not think he remembered I'd been away."
+
+"Oh, I am glad," cried Patricia, clapping her hands; "of course it's
+very nice of him to be so clever and write so beautifully, but it's
+much nicer when he's just a dear silly thing--and catches goldfish.
+But tell me about yourself now. Are you well? And have you been
+working hard? Why aren't you in Belgium, why have you come, and what
+are you going to do, and when are you going back?"
+
+"Stop, I can't keep more than five questions in my head at once and
+I've answered several of yours already. The first is trivial; you have
+eyes. I have been working as usual; it's no use to explain how, you
+have no conception of work at all. I am not in Belgium because I am
+here in a better place. I am going to enjoy myself, I hope, and I
+shall go away when it pleases me."
+
+"Indeed, Your Highness. You have not explained why you came."
+
+"I think," said Christopher, considering hard and speaking with slow
+deliberation, "I _think_, only it is so preposterously silly, that I
+came to see you, or perhaps it was Caesar or Nevil if it were not
+Max."
+
+Patricia laughed deliciously and leant forward, making pretence to box
+his ears. Christopher shook the bough in revenge till she cried pax,
+and peace supervened.
+
+"Since you have evidently no business of your own to see to," she said
+severely, "it shall be my business to teach you to appreciate Robert
+Bridges."
+
+"I don't like his name; who is he?" Christopher grumbled.
+
+"He is a genius and you must sit at his feet and listen."
+
+"Isn't it respectful to stand?"
+
+She regarded him gravely with her head on one side. "True humility
+sits ill on you, I fear. You may stand if you take off your hat."
+
+He flung it on the grass obediently.
+
+"The Cliff Edge." "The Cliff Edge has a carpet ... of purple, gold,
+and green."
+
+She read the little poem all through, her sweet, appreciative voice
+making music of the lines already melodious. Christopher wondered if
+the writer ever knew how beautiful his words could be made.
+
+"Is that not lovely?" she asked when she finished, leaning forward so
+that her hand and the book rested for a moment on his arm.
+
+Christopher nodded without moving.
+
+"It makes me thirsty for the sea," she went on, "for sky, for space to
+move and breathe. Oh, Christopher, things here are either old or
+small. All the great and beautiful things are old, the glory of it,
+the house, the life, the very trees, old, old, old. And the rest is
+small, protected and shut in. I want to feel things that are young and
+free and great, as the sky and sea and the wind. I am thirsty
+sometimes to stand on the edge of the cliff and taste the free, free
+air from off the sea that has no one else's thoughts in it. Do you
+understand that?--the longing for something that does not belong to
+any part, to any one?"
+
+"Yes, I understand. I feel it too, sometimes."
+
+"I knew you did. You see, it's because neither of us belong here--to
+Marden--really. Oh, I don't mean it horridly. It's the dearest place
+and they are all the dearest people; but the life, the big thought of
+it all, isn't ours. _Our_ people didn't help make it."
+
+Christopher made no answer. He was idly flinging bits of bark into his
+hat. If he were but certain--oh, if he could but be certain she were
+right! He looked up at her at last.
+
+There could be no room for the grey shadows of doubt any longer. She
+_was_ right. He felt it as he looked and as the thought she suggested
+sank deeper into his mind. Was not he truly one with her in it? He,
+too, had been conscious of a Life and History here at Marden not his
+own, that exacted no obligations from him, but rather silently
+insisted on the freedom. Such freedom, mated to hers, was the last
+great boon he asked of life that had already given him so much. Still
+he hesitated for very fear of losing the joy of the hour that would be
+his and hers for eternity when he sealed it with the passionate words
+in his heart.
+
+"I know just what you mean," he said, "it is no disloyalty to them to
+feel it--only loyalty to ourselves. As for the sea and all that, I
+will motor you down to Milford whenever you like."
+
+"Oh, Christopher!" She clasped her hands with joy like a child. "Have
+you brought the new motor? What is it like?"
+
+"It's a perfect love, Patricia. I drove it down from town to-day. Such
+a road, stones, ruts--and it behaved like an angel although weighted
+with an extra sixteen stone of colossal brutality--Peter Masters,
+Esquire, millionaire."
+
+"Oh, why on earth did you bring him down here?"
+
+"He did not ask permission. He just came--wanted to see St. Michael.
+Don't let's talk about him. Let's talk about ourselves. We are much
+more interesting."
+
+"Egoist!"
+
+"Doesn't the plural number cancel the egoism? But I really have
+something to tell you about myself. Two things, indeed, if you'll
+kindly listen."
+
+"I will try to be polite. Proceed." She ensconced herself comfortably
+against the trunk of the tree, folded her hands in her lap and smiled
+down at him under her half-shut lids. He also moved his position a
+very little so that he could see her better.
+
+"First, then, Patricia, I have actually done something in Belgium. The
+roads of which I have dreamed are not quite such fantastic fancies
+now as they were a year ago."
+
+She sat erect at once, alert and brimming over with interest.
+
+"Oh, Christopher!"
+
+"It is not done yet," he went on slowly, "but it is on the way to be
+done. It means that all the roads here, and the roads all over the
+world, will one day be made easy to travel upon. It means that mud,
+dirt and noise will be evils of the past, and they will be roads that
+will last down the ages." He stopped with a little catch in his breath
+and looked at her half ashamed, half pleadingly.
+
+But Patricia was gazing past him through a gap in the trees at a white
+flinty road that struggled up to the distant downs. "Yes," she said
+very softly, as if fearing to quench a vision she saw there, "yes,
+that is a great and a good thing, and like you."
+
+"Thank you," he answered laughing--the spell of their mutual
+earnestness pressed him too sorely.
+
+"Don't laugh," she returned swiftly with a frown; "it is not the
+goodness that's like you. It's a sort of strongness about
+it--something to hold on to for all time." She stopped abruptly,
+looking at him gravely.
+
+This time he did not laugh, but he put one hand on hers, and his was
+shaking.
+
+"Christopher," she said coaxingly, "will you really take me down to
+the sea when I like?"
+
+"Whenever you like."
+
+"Then do it this afternoon. Now, at once," she cried pleadingly, and
+seeing his face of amazement, added, "you promised, Christopher."
+
+"Of course. I'll do it; but why not to-morrow, when we can have a long
+day?"
+
+"Because--because to-day is all my own," she said softly, "and
+to-morrow isn't. Christopher, I did not mean to tell anyone to-day,
+but I must tell you, I am going to marry Geoffry,"--she flushed rosy
+red, but he did not see it--"it was last night--he wanted to see Nevil
+at once, but I wouldn't let him. I wanted this day to myself. It was
+nice of you to come and make it complete."
+
+His hand still held hers, but it was still and motionless now. She
+stroked it softly. Christopher drew it gently away.
+
+"You ought to wish me happiness or something, ought you not?" she
+said.
+
+"I do, Patricia," he said, looking up at her.
+
+He wanted to say more; self-preservation demanded it, and again
+demanded silence. Their voices seemed to him far away, speaking in
+some fairy orchard where he was not. He could barely hear them.
+
+"You'll pretend not to know anything about it till to-morrow, won't
+you?" she pleaded. "Don't spoil my day. It isn't that it won't be
+perfectly lovely to be engaged, but the past has been, lovely too, and
+I want to keep it a tiny bit longer. You'll help me, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I'll help you."
+
+If he could but keep to-day forever shut in his heart with her, though
+life crumbled to ruins about them! But the invincible hours were
+ranged against him, and would claim it their own.
+
+"And you'll take me to the sea?"
+
+"Yes, if you come at once."
+
+She descended from her perch with his help. She did not know his hands
+felt numb and dead as he held and released her.
+
+"You haven't told me the second thing about yourself," she remarked,
+brushing the bark and lichen from her dress.
+
+"It will keep," he said quietly.
+
+And they went out of the orchard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Whatever may have been the pressing business that caused Peter Masters
+to seek his cousin's company in so speedy a manner, the immediate
+necessity of it seemed to have evaporated on the journey. He sat
+talking of various things to Aymer and Charles Aston, but uttered
+nothing as to the reason of his visit, and Mr. Aston, with his eye on
+Aymer, chafed a little and found it hard to maintain his usual
+serenity. Aymer, on the contrary, seemed more deliberate and placid
+than usual; there was a slowness in his speech, and an unusual
+willingness to leave the conversation in his visitor's hands as if he
+mistrusted his own powers to keep it in desirable channels. He
+appeared to have suddenly abdicated his position on the objective
+positive side of life and to have become a mere passive instrument of
+the hour, subjective and unresisting.
+
+It was his father who was ready, armed against fate, alert, watchful
+to ward off all that might harm or distress his eldest son. Peter
+spoke of their exodus from London, their sojourn in the country, told
+them anecdotes of big deals, and was, in his big, burly, shrewd way,
+amusing and less ruthlessly tactless than usual. He had long ago given
+up all hope of interesting Aymer in a financial career, but he
+nevertheless retained a curiously respectful belief in his cousin's
+mental powers.
+
+"By the way," he said presently, "I've not bought a car yet. That boy
+of yours seems to know something about them. Do you think he could be
+trusted to choose one for me?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+Aymer's tone was completely impartial, and Peter ruminated over his
+next remark a moment.
+
+"You still mean him to stick to his Road Engineering?"
+
+"He is perfectly free to do as he likes."
+
+Charles Aston put in a word.
+
+"He is twenty-two now, and he knows his own mind a good deal better
+than most boys of that age. He seems bent on carrying out his Road
+scheme, and there seems no reason why he should not." He pushed over a
+box of cigars to his visitor.
+
+"No, exactly. No reason at all." Peter selected a cigar carefully. "I
+expect you find it very interesting watching how he turns out, don't
+you, Aymer?"
+
+"It is not uninteresting."
+
+"You've not seen Nevil yet," suggested Mr. Aston. "He is just out of a
+spell of work; come out in the garden and find him while you smoke."
+
+"Well, perhaps we might, if you don't mind being left, Aymer?" Peter's
+voice was full of kindly interest. To him the great catastrophe was
+ever a new and awful thing, and Aymer an invalid to be considered and
+treated with such attention as he knew how.
+
+"Not in the least," said Aymer politely, marvelling how exactly his
+father had gauged the limits of his endurance. When the heavy
+curtained door had shut out voices and footsteps and only the
+stillness of the room was with him the forced passivity slipped from
+Aymer like a mask, and his was again the face of a fighter, of one
+still fighting against fearful odds.
+
+He lay with clenched hands and rigid face, and great beads of
+perspiration stood on his forehead, for that passive indifference
+towards what had become a matter of life and death to him was the
+fruit of a victory that had to be won again and again each time his
+perilous position was assailed by the appearance of Peter Masters.
+
+His very existence had become so bound up in the life of the boy he
+had taken as his own that the smallest fraying of the cord which bound
+them together was a thought of new pain. The passionate, fiercely
+jealous nature that had lain dormant so long had gathered strength
+from silence and clamoured with imperious insistence on its right, to
+love, to whole allegiance, to undisputed sway over Christopher.
+
+What right could this man, Christopher's father though he were, in the
+flesh, show beside his, Aymer Aston's? Every instinct rose in
+indignant rebellion against the fiat of his own conscience.
+
+For before his deep love was awake to confuse his judgment he had
+declared that if he might only be permitted to bring Elizabeth
+Masters's son through the perilous passage of boyhood, he would never
+stand between Christopher and what, after all, was his right due, and
+in the eyes of the world, his wonderful fortune. Elizabeth of the
+brave heart and uncompromising creed had thought otherwise of this
+fortune, as did Charles Aston and Aymer himself. The first had
+imperilled her beloved child's bodily welfare to save him from what
+she thought an evil thing, and the Astons, father and son, had bid
+defiance to their hitherto straightforward policy and followed
+expediency instead of open dealing, but there Aymer stopped.
+
+The decision he had made must be adhered to at all costs. It mattered
+nothing he had not been in a position to count the cost ten years ago.
+He at least could not discount his own word. If Fate drew Christopher
+to the side of his unknown father, Aymer must put out no hand to
+intervene.
+
+But the cost of it--the cost!--He put his shaking hands over his face,
+trying to consider the position reasonably.
+
+Even if Peter Masters learnt the truth and claimed
+
+Christopher, Christopher was of age and must act for himself, and
+Aymer could not doubt his action. His misery lay in no suspicion of
+Christopher's loyal love, but in his own unconquerable, wildly jealous
+desire to stand alone in the post of honour, of true fatherhood to the
+son of the woman he had loved to such disastrous end. And behind that
+lay the bitter, unquenchable resentment that, pretend as he would,
+Christopher was not his son, not even of unknown parentage, but in
+actual fact the son of the man who had unknowingly robbed him of love,
+and whom he had all his life alternately hated and despised.
+
+It was some subtle knowledge of what was passing in that still room
+that made Charles Aston a shade less kindly, a little more alert than
+usual to hidden meanings, and it was the sight of Aymer's apparent
+passivity in the face of all that threatened him, that brought him to
+the mind to fight every inch of ground before he put into the hands of
+Peter Masters the tangled clue of the story that he alone knew in all
+its completeness.
+
+The suspicion that had gripped Peter Masters on the journey down was
+slowly stiffening into a certainty, but he was still undecided in his
+mind as to the line of action he would take. If these people with
+their ultra-heroic code of honour had fooled him, and forestalled him
+in this matter of his son with deliberate intent to frustrate any
+advances he might make, it would go hard with them in the end, cousins
+or no cousins. Such was his first thought; but he had yet to prove
+they were not simply waiting for a sign to deliver back his son to
+him, in which case Peter was not unprepared to be grateful, for his
+heart--and he had one--had gone out to the plucky, determined young
+man who had lied so bravely. Peter determined, therefore, he would
+give Charles Aston a chance and see what happened. In a blindly,
+inarticulate way he felt it was impossible to play with Aymer, he was
+even conscious it was a matter of great moment to him, though he could
+not in any manner see why it was so.
+
+"Nevil will survive if we put him off a little longer," said Peter as
+they crossed the hall, "I want to see you on a private matter, Cousin
+Charles."
+
+Mr. Aston led the way without a word to his own room. He made no doubt
+as to what the matter was. Perhaps the shadow of the expected
+interview had lain too heavily on him of late to leave room for
+suspicion of other affairs.
+
+It was a long, cheerful room, lined with books, and the furniture was
+solid and shabby with long service. There was an indefinite atmosphere
+of peace and repose about it, of leisured days haunted by no grey
+thoughts, very typical of the owner. The window stood open, though a
+fire burned clearly on the plain brick hearth, beneath a big hooded
+chimney-piece.
+
+Mr. Aston indicated a big easy chair to his visitor and seated himself
+at his writing table, from whence he could see, behind Peter, on the
+far wall, a portrait of Aymer painted in the pride of his life and
+youth, so wonderfully like even now in its strong colour and forcible
+power, and so full of subtle differences and fine distinctions.
+
+"I don't know even if you'll listen to me," began Peter, who knew very
+well Charles Aston would refuse to listen to no man; "fifteen years
+ago you told me you'd said your last word on the subject."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Peter, it was you who said the subject was closed
+between us."
+
+"Ah, yes. So I did. May I reopen it?"
+
+"If it can serve any good purpose, but you know my opinions."
+
+"I thought perhaps they might have altered with the changing years,"
+said Peter blandly.
+
+"Not one bit, I assure you."
+
+"Really. It never strikes you that I was justified in attending to
+Elizabeth's very plainly expressed wishes, or that it might be a happy
+thing for the boy that I did so."
+
+"The question between us," said his cousin gently, "was whether you
+were justified in abandoning them, not whether it was advantageous to
+them or not."
+
+"I would point out in passing, Cousin Charles, that Elizabeth
+abandoned me, but we will let that be. My reason for opening the
+subject at all is not a question of justification." He puffed away
+slowly at his cigar for a minute and then went on in an even,
+unemotional voice. "The fact is something rather strange has happened.
+For twenty years I have believed I knew the exact whereabouts of
+Elizabeth and my son. I had a good reason for the belief. One man only
+shared this supposititious knowledge with me." His hearer seemed about
+to speak, but desisted and looked away from Peter out of the window.
+Not a movement, a sign, a breath, escaped those hard blue eyes, and
+Charles Aston knew it. It did not render him nervous or even
+indignant, but he was a trifle more dignified, more obviously
+determined to be courteous at any cost.
+
+"That boy and his mother were living at Liverpool," went on Peter
+calmly. "He was employed in a big shipping firm in a very minor
+capacity. He was killed in the great explosion in the dock last
+week."
+
+He spoke as calmly as if he were saying his supposed son had lost his
+post or had gone for a holiday.
+
+Charles Aston gave a sudden movement and turned a shocked face towards
+the speaker.
+
+"Terrible!" he said, "I wonder how the shareholders in that company
+feel? Did you see the verdict?"
+
+Peter waved his hand. "Yes, yes. Juries lose their heads in these
+cases. But to continue. I went down to Liverpool at once before the
+funeral, you understand." He paused. "I was naturally much disturbed
+and horrified, and then--well, the boy wasn't my son, after all."
+
+"Not your son?" echoed Charles Aston slowly.
+
+"No, not my son." There was a tinge of impatience in his voice. "I
+should not have known, but the mother was there. She went in as I came
+out."
+
+"His mother was alive?"
+
+"Yes. She was not Elizabeth."
+
+His cousin turned to him, indignation blazing in his eyes. "For twenty
+years, Peter, you believed you knew your wife's whereabouts, you knew
+she was in more or less a state of poverty, and you made no attempt to
+see her face to face? You accepted the story of another with no
+attempt to personally prove the truth yourself?"
+
+"I had good reason to believe it," returned Peter sulkily. "She would
+have let me know if she were in want. I had told her she could come
+back when she had had enough of it."
+
+"And this poor woman, whose son was killed. What of her?"
+
+"I don't know anything about her except she wasn't Elizabeth."
+
+"You had believed her so for twenty years."
+
+"I had made a mistake. She knew nothing about that. I took good care
+she should not. There was no doubt about her being the boy's mother,
+and no doubt she was not Elizabeth. She had no claim on me."
+
+"No claim!" Charles Aston stood up and faced him, "not even the claim
+of the widow--her one son dead. No claim, when for all those years
+those two items of humanity represented in your perverse mind the two
+people nearest--I won't say dearest--to you. No claim!" He stopped
+and walked away to the window.
+
+Peter smiled tolerantly. He enjoyed making this kind, generous man
+flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible,
+but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in
+his own affairs to get much satisfaction from it.
+
+"Well, well, don't let us argue about it. We don't think alike in
+these matters. The point I want to consult you about is not my
+susceptibility to sentiment, but the chances of my picking up a clue
+twenty years old."
+
+"I should say they were hardly worth considering." He spoke
+deliberately, turning from the window to resume his place by the
+table. The fight had begun; they had crossed blades at last.
+
+"There is a very good detective called Chance and a better one called
+Luck."
+
+"You have secured their services?"
+
+"I am not certain yet. Can you help me?"
+
+He made the appeal with calculated directness, knowing his man and his
+aversion to evasion, but if he expected him to hesitate he was
+disappointed.
+
+"No, I can do nothing. I tried for five years to bring you to some
+sense of your responsibility in this matter. You were not frank with
+me then, it seems. I can do nothing now."
+
+"And have lost all interest in it, I suppose?"
+
+"No. It is your interest that rises and falls with the occasion, but I
+decline to have anything to do with it. If--as I do not
+believe--Elizabeth is still alive she and your son have done without
+your help for twenty years and can do without it still."
+
+"They have doubtless plenty of friends."
+
+"Let us hope so. What was the name of the Liverpool woman?"
+
+"Priestly. What does it matter? The question is, I must find my son
+somehow, for I must have an heir."
+
+"Adopt one."
+
+"As did Aymer?" He shot a questioning glance at him. "It's such a
+risk. I might not be so lucky. Sons like Christopher are not to be had
+for nothing."
+
+"No, they are not," said Charles Aston drily. "They are the result of
+years of love and patience, of generous tolerance, of unquenchable
+courage. They bring days of joy which must be paid for with hours of
+anxiety and nights of pain. Were you prepared to give your son this,
+even if you had taken him to you as a boy?"
+
+Peter waved his big hand again. "I quite admit all that is needed to
+produce men of your pattern, Cousin Charles, and I have the
+profoundest admiration for the result; but I am not ambitious; I
+should be content to produce the ordinary successful man."
+
+"I think Christopher will score a success."
+
+"Yes, in spite of you both, by reason of his practical, determined,
+hard-headed nature which he probably inherits from his father, eh?"
+
+"You are probably right. I am not in a position to say."
+
+"You did not know his parents?"
+
+Charles Aston pushed back his chair and looked beyond Peter to the
+portrait of Aymer. They must come to close quarters or he would give
+out, and suddenly it came to him that he must adhere to his universal
+rule, must give the better side of the man's nature a chance before he
+openly defied him. The decision was made quite quickly. Peter only
+recognised a slight pause. "You seem interested in Christopher," Mr.
+Aston said slowly. "I will tell you what there is to know. About
+eleven years ago Aymer became possessed of a passionate desire to have
+a boy to bring up, since he might not have one of his own. In hunting
+for a suitable one I stumbled on the son of someone I had known who
+had fallen on very evil days." He stopped a moment. Peter took out
+another cigar and lit it. "On very evil days," repeated the other.
+"The boy was left at a country workhouse in this county as it
+happened. I knew enough of his paternity to know that he was a
+suitable subject for Aymer to father. I have never regretted what I
+did. The boy has become the mainspring of Aymer's life; he lives again
+in him. All that has been denied him, he finds in Christopher's
+career; all he cannot give the world he has given to this boy, this
+son of his heart and soul. No father could love more, could suffer
+more. And Christopher is repaying him. He has known no father but
+Aymer, no authority but his, no conflicting claim. I pray God daily
+that neither now nor in the future shall any shadow fall between these
+two to cancel by one solitary item Christopher's obligation to his
+adopted father. Perhaps I am selfish over it, but anyway, Aymer is my
+son, and I understand how it is with him."
+
+There was a silence in the room. Peter puffed vehemently and the
+clouds of blue-grey smoke circling round him obscured the heavy
+features from his cousin when his eyes left the picture to look at
+him.
+
+"Yes, yes, I see. Quite so," said a voice from the smoke at last, and
+slowly the strong, bland expressionless face emerged clearly from the
+halo, "but I am no further on my way towards my son. And who's to have
+the money if I don't find him? Will you?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!--and Nature! Peter, I'm sixty and you are
+fifty-four."
+
+"Will Nevil's boy?"
+
+"We have enough. We should count it a misfortune. Leave it in
+charities."
+
+"And suppose he discovers some day who he is, and wanted it?"
+
+"Hardly likely after so long."
+
+"Quite likely. Shall I leave it to Christopher?"
+
+It was the last thrust, and it told. There was quite a long silence.
+Charles longed passionately to refuse, but even he dared not. The
+issue was too great. "I cannot dictate to you in the matter," he said
+at length, "but I do not think Christopher would appreciate it."
+
+"Then I must hope to find a Christopher of my own," returned Peter,
+rising; "let us meanwhile find Nevil."
+
+The duel was over and apparently the result was as undetermined as
+ever. The only satisfaction poor Charles Aston derived was from the
+fact that Peter was unusually gentle and tactful to Aymer that
+afternoon. He seemed in no hurry to go, urged as excuse he wanted to
+consult Christopher about a motor, but when they sent to find that
+young gentleman, they discovered he and Patricia and the motor were
+missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It seemed to Christopher as he overhauled his long-suffering motor
+preparatory to the new run, that a great gap of innumerable grey days
+stretched between him and the moment he brought the car to a
+standstill before the doors of the house, that had appeared to him to
+be a Temple of Promise. It was in fact barely an hour and a half and
+the greater part of that time had been occupied with lunch and a hasty
+interview with Aymer. That shorter interlude in the orchard just over,
+had already blotted out a golden landscape with a driving mist that
+obscured all true proportion of time or space. He longed greatly, with
+a sense of strange fatigue, to be sitting at Caesar's side and to find
+the restless discomfort evaporate as they talked, even as his boyish
+troubles had melted in that companionship. That must come later: for
+the present Fate--or Patricia--made a demand on him to which he was
+bound to answer. Where a weaker nature would have said "impossible,"
+he simply found an ordinary action rendered difficult by his own
+private view of it, therefore it behooved him to close the shutters on
+that outlook if he could, and ignore the difficulty.
+
+Renata, who came out with Patricia, protested a little indignantly at
+the latter's exaction.
+
+"It is so inconsiderate of Patricia, just as you have had such a
+journey. Why do you give in to her, Christopher?"
+
+"To-day is as good as any day," he answered her, "perhaps the visitor
+will have gone when we return."
+
+"Oh, I hope so," said Renata fervently, and then blushed at her own
+inhospitality. "I mean, Caesar would rather have you to himself, I am
+sure."
+
+"And I would rather have Caesar unaccompanied. So there is some use in
+Patricia's fancy."
+
+"Of course," put in that young lady, "there always is. Please do not
+waste precious time talking. Tell me where I am to sit, Christopher."
+
+"I'll take every care of her," said Christopher, looking at Renata,
+"we'll be back in time for dinner. Be kind and get rid of Mr. Masters
+by then."
+
+"Like a dear little angel," concluded Patricia, kissing her; "think
+how he bores Nevil, and don't be hospitable."
+
+Christopher settled her in the seat beside him, tucked her in with
+rugs, put up the front screen and started.
+
+For a few short minutes the joy of having her there beside him, his
+sole charge for some golden hours to come, his to carry in a mad rush
+if he would to the ends of the earth, obliterated for a moment the
+bewildering mist.
+
+He drove for some way in silence. Patricia was too much absorbed in
+the pleasures of swift motion to talk. Her first words, however, shut
+down the mists on him again.
+
+"Geoffry must have a car," she declared. "He must get one just like
+this."
+
+"I thought Geoffry was to be left behind this afternoon?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose he was. I don't believe you are a bit pleased about it
+really, Christopher."
+
+He clutched at the truth as a plank of safety.
+
+"Well, you can't expect me to be glad to lose your company, can you? I
+shall never make a golfer now."
+
+She laughed at that and recommended a course at St. Andrew's under a
+professional, which proposal he treated with scorn, but after a short
+silence he said in a different voice:
+
+"Don't think I'm not glad at anything that makes you happy, Patricia.
+Geoffry's a real good sort and--here's a town--you must not speak to
+the man at the wheel."
+
+Patricia was obedient. She sank into a reverie in which, despite her
+own determination, Geoffry played a long part. It was characteristic
+of her exact attitude towards her accepted lover that it was the
+immediate future in which he figured most clearly. Her thoughts
+hovered round the pleasant summer to come with the distant excitement
+of a wedding to crown it. She never considered, or only in the most
+cursory way, the long years ahead, the daily companionship with the
+man she had chosen. She was honestly attached to Geoffry. She believed
+she was in love with him, whereas, as is far more often the case than
+the young suppose, she was in love with the love that had come to her
+in the glory of the spring, offered by familiar hands that were dear
+because of what they held for her.
+
+So they drove through the glowing afternoon, and the line of white
+road before them appeared to Christopher as a track dividing past and
+future, the thin edge of the passing minutes. They spoke no more,
+however, on the forbidden subject. Christopher presently explained to
+her the visible mechanism of the car and on a stretch of clear road
+let her put her hands on the wheel beneath his own and feel the joy of
+fictitious control. Before the sun quenched itself in the sea they
+stood on the Cliff Edge and looked out across the shining waters into
+the great space, where a thought-laden air renews itself, reforming,
+cancelling and creating in the crucible of Life. They clambered down
+from the lip of the cliff on to a jutting-out shelf of rock, screened
+with gorse, where the few feet of gravel bank behind them shut out
+all signs of habitation.
+
+Patricia sat with her hands clasped round her knees drawing slow, deep
+draughts of the cool air, her eyes on the immense free space, and she
+spoke not at all with her lips, yet Christopher, lying at her feet,
+caught her thoughts as they came and went with strange certainty and
+stranger heartache. He picked a handful of golden gorse petals and
+pressed the sweet blossoms to his face: ever after their scent was to
+mean for him that place and rapture of that hour, in which was borne
+to him the certainty of his right to her, and the knowledge of the
+surrender he was making in each silent minute. For she was his now, if
+he told her, if he broke faith, if he claimed the right that was his.
+
+Now in this golden hour he would win if he spoke, sweeping aside the
+shadowy intervening form of the other with the relentless persistent
+truth of the faith that was in him, a faith that had no ground in
+personal vanity or individual pride, but was only the recognition of a
+great Fact that lay outside and beyond them both, that named Patricia
+forever his in a world where the Real is disentangled from the
+Appearance.
+
+Was life to consist, for him, in a relinquishing of his own rights in
+conformity to the Law of Appearance? Was it but a cowardly fear of
+convention that held him back from claiming her now on the verge of
+the world? Or was it a deeper, half-understood trust of the Great
+Realities of Life, a knowledge that faith, integrity, and honour are
+no conventions, but belong to Real World of Truth, and that he could
+snatch no joy of life over their trampled forms? He tried dimly to
+understand these things, to gauge the nature of the forces that
+controlled him, but he never doubted what force would claim his
+obedience. It was already habitual to him by reason of training and
+instinct to set such Laws of Life as he recognised before his own
+will. But that will was very clamorous this evening as he pressed the
+hot yellow whin-flowers to his face drinking their fragrance into his
+thirsty soul.
+
+When he raised his eyes he looked out at sea and sky and avoided the
+dear sweet face above him. She still sat smiling out into the serene
+space, watching as it were the random thoughts of her subconscious
+self floating in those ethereal realms. It was almost too great a
+happiness for peace, the fair world, the comprehending companion, who
+understood without the clumsy medium of words, and the love awaiting
+her on the morrow. She did not wish for Geoffry's presence now, she
+was perfectly content that he stood in the beautiful morrow, that he
+was bringing her a good and precious crown to the golden days of her
+youth.
+
+She sighed out of pure joy and so broke the spell of the golden and
+blue-cloaked silence which had reigned. Without moving she gathered a
+handful of whin blooms and scattered them over the brown head at her
+feet, a baptism of golden fire. He shook them off and looked up at
+her, laughing.
+
+"Asleep, I believe, Christopher, you lazy person. What were you
+dreaming about?"
+
+"Bees, heather and honey," he murmured, surreptitiously gathering up a
+handful of the golden rain she had tossed him. "Have you had your
+breath of freedom, Patricia--are you ready for tea and buttered
+toast?"
+
+"And honey, you provoking materialist," she insisted.
+
+"Honey is stolen property--I always feel a consort of thieves when I
+eat it."
+
+"Then I'll eat it and you can shut your eyes. Christopher, suppose the
+car goes wrong on the way home?"
+
+He scoffed at that, but while she ate her honey he made an exhaustive
+inspection of it.
+
+When the sun dropped out of sight a shivering wind sprang up and the
+blue sky drew a grey cloak over itself. Christopher wrapped his
+companion in a fur coat and tucked her in anxiously.
+
+She had become restless and dissatisfied as if the sun had taken her
+joy to rest with him, or as if the thoughts gathered from space found
+an unready lodgment in her mind. Christopher made some effort to talk
+on indifferent subjects, but she answered with strange brevity or not
+at all, once with such impatience that he glanced quickly at her hands
+and saw they were hidden by the long sleeves of his big coat she
+wore.
+
+Presently she said abruptly:
+
+"We ought not to have stayed so long. Why did you go to sleep?"
+
+"I didn't," he retorted, amazed at the accusation.
+
+"Then you ought to have talked."
+
+"I thought we were superior to such conventions."
+
+"That is an excuse for sheer laziness on your part. And even if you
+are superior," she added, inconsequently, "I am not. What were you
+thinking about?"
+
+"Shall I tell you of what you were thinking?"
+
+"You can't."
+
+"Out in the great space you saw all the future days weaving for you a
+dress of blue and gold, of hopes and fulfilment. You saw how they
+smiled at you, you were glad of the love they bore you, the good they
+were bringing you. You felt in your own soul how you belonged to them,
+you were a part of all this dear living world."
+
+"Don't, don't," she cried, half under her breath.
+
+"Isn't it true?" he insisted.
+
+"You have no business, no right to know. Christopher, how dare you."
+Her face flushed with inward emotion, with some fierce resentment that
+laid hold of her senses without reason and dragged fear in its wake.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said humbly. "I've often done it before and you never
+minded."
+
+"It's quite different now. It's unbearable. I don't like it any more,
+I hate it. Do you hear, Christopher?"
+
+"Yes. It was unpardonable. I am sorry, Patricia, I won't do it
+again."
+
+"You won't try to understand me like that? Promise," she urged.
+
+"I didn't try then. I only knew. I promise I won't tell you again."
+
+"That's not enough," she persisted, twisting her fingers under cover
+of the long sleeves. "You mustn't know. You must not be able to do it.
+I won't bear it. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then promise."
+
+"I've promised all I can. I certainly won't try to know. I can't help
+it involuntarily."
+
+"You must. I insist--Christopher, quick."
+
+They were running at a great pace along a straight level piece of road
+with high banks on either side, and by the roadside at regular
+intervals were piles of broken granite. Christopher's attention was
+fixed on a distant speck that might be a danger-signal and he did not
+answer her or notice the nearer signal of danger in her white face.
+
+She was in the grip of her old wild passion again, on fire with her
+need of assurance, and in a gust of anger she caught at the wheel that
+seemed to claim his mind. The car swerved violently, jolted up on to
+the turf, bumped madly along at a dangerous tilt, swerved back into
+the road two feet clear of a grey pile of stone. Only then did
+Christopher know her fingers were gripped between his hands and the
+steel wheel. He brought the car to a standstill and her released hand
+fell white and numb to her side. She neither spoke nor moved, but
+gazed before her, oblivious even of her crushed fingers.
+
+There was a running brook the other side of the hedge and a convenient
+gate. He soaked his handkerchief in it, came back to her and put the
+numbed hand on the cool linen. His grip had been like iron and the
+averted disaster so near as to be hardly passed from his senses, yet
+he felt sick and ashamed at this almost trifling price they had to
+pay. He felt each bruised finger carefully and bound them up as best
+he could, and only then did he speak.
+
+"I'm fearfully sorry, Patricia, I didn't know."
+
+She looked vaguely at the white bound hand.
+
+"My fingers? Oh, I'm glad. You shouldn't have tied them up."
+
+He paid no heed, but having examined the car, climbed back to his
+place.
+
+"We must go on," he remarked, "so it's no use asking you if you are
+too frightened, Patricia."
+
+"You might put me out on the roadside," she suggested dully.
+
+To that, too, he paid no heed and they started again.
+
+The miles slipped by in unbroken silence. It was not till they were
+nearly home that Christopher spoke.
+
+"I thought that was all quite gone, Patricia."
+
+"So did I," she returned wearily. "It's ages since I was so stupid.
+It's generally all right if you are there."
+
+"But I'm not always there anyhow."
+
+"I don't mean there really. I just shut my eyes and pretend you are
+and hold on. But just now I waited for you to do something. I forgot
+you were driving."
+
+"You mustn't rely on me to stop you now," he insisted, with new
+gravity.
+
+"Oh, yes, I do. It's always you if I stop in time; either you
+actually, or thinking of you. Don't talk about it, Christopher dear,
+it was too horrible."
+
+She did not explain if she meant the danger or the cause, but he
+obeyed and said no more. A terrible fear clamoured at his heart. Did
+Geoffry Leverson know or did he not? and if he knew, would he even
+understand? He tried to tell himself that if he could manage her, then
+another, and that her acknowledged lover, could do so too, but he knew
+this was false reasoning. Such power as he had over her lay in his
+recognition that the irresistible inheritance was not an integral part
+of Patricia, but was an exotic growth, foisted upon her by the
+ill-understood laws of paternity, and finding no natural soil in her
+pure self--something indeed, of a lower nature, that she must and
+could override. He could have curbed it in the brief flash just over,
+he knew, had his attention been free. It had died as it had come and
+the penalty of the crushed fingers hurt him as unwarrantable, combined
+with the peril they had run.
+
+It was a fresh addition of cloud to the dimmed day to find Peter
+Masters had not departed, but was staying the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Aymer gazed out of the open window at Christopher and Peter Masters as
+they walked to and fro on the terrace. He knew the subject they were
+discussing, and he was already sure how it would end. But what were
+the real issues involved he could not determine, and he was impotent,
+by reason of his vow and will, to influence them. He could only lie
+still and watch, tortured by jealous fear and the physical
+helplessness that forbade him the one relief of movement for which his
+soul craved. The patience the long years had schooled him into was
+slipping away, and the elementary forces of his nature reigned in its
+stead.
+
+Under the overmastering impulse towards action he made a futile effort
+to sit up that he might better follow the movements of the two
+outside. It was a pathetic failure, and he swore fiercely as he fell
+back and found his father's arms round him.
+
+"Aymer, if you are going to be so childish, I shall tell Christopher
+not to go."
+
+"No. I'm a fool, but I won't have him know it. He must go if he
+will."
+
+"There is nothing to fear if he does. What is wrong with you?"
+
+"I want to go back to town, I'm tired of this."
+
+"You are far better here than in town," said his father uneasily.
+
+"I'm well enough anywhere."
+
+"I shall have to tell Christopher not to go."
+
+"No." The tone was sharply negative again, and after a moment's
+silence Aymer said in a low, grudging voice, "You've always helped
+before; are you going to desert me now?"
+
+For answer his father got up and pushed the big sliding sofa away from
+the window.
+
+"Very well, then behave yourself better, Aymer, and don't ford a
+stream before you come to it. You've got to listen to Penruddock's
+speech." He folded back the _Times_ and began to read.
+
+When Christopher came back a little later he saw no sign of the
+trouble. Perhaps he was a little too much engrossed in his own
+perplexities to be as observant as usual.
+
+"Caesar, do you think it's a shabby thing to stay with a man you don't
+like?"
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I think so. I want to see how he does it."
+
+"Does what?"
+
+"Makes his money. Does it seem shabby to you?"
+
+"You can't know if you like him or not. You know nothing about him."
+
+"I shall be back at the end of the week. You don't mind my going,
+Caesar? I'd rather go before I settle down."
+
+"Another week's peace," returned Caesar, indifferently. "The truth is,
+you're in a scrape and putting off confession, young man."
+
+Christopher laughed at him.
+
+They were to leave early next morning, so Peter Masters bade Aymer
+good-bye that night. He apologised clumsily for taking Christopher
+away so soon after his long absence.
+
+"It's the only free week I've got for months, and I want to study your
+handiwork, Aymer."
+
+"Christopher has points. I don't know how many score to me," returned
+his cousin with steadily forced indifference.
+
+"Well, you've taken more trouble over him than most fathers would
+do."
+
+"Are you an expert?"
+
+Peter laughed grimly and stood looking at Aymer with his chin in his
+hand, a curiously characteristic attitude of doubt with him.
+
+"You won't be overpleased when he wants to marry, which he is sure to
+do just when he's become useful to you."
+
+For the first time in his life Peter Masters recognised the harassed
+soul of a man as it leapt to sight, and saw the shadow of pain conquer
+a fierce will. The revelation struck him dumb, for incongruously and
+unreasonably there flashed before his mind a memory of this face with
+twenty years wiped out. He went slowly away carrying with him a vivid
+impression and new knowledge.
+
+It was a new experience to him. He knew something of men's minds, but
+of their emotions and the passions of their souls he was no judge. He
+puzzled over the meaning of what he had seen as he faced Christopher
+in the train next day, studying him with a disconcerting gaze. Could
+Aymer possibly love the boy to the verge of jealousy? It seemed so
+incredible and absurd. Yet what other interpretation could he place on
+that look he had surprised? Charles Aston's words, which had not been
+without effect, paled before this self-revelation. It annoyed him
+greatly that the disturbing vision should intrude itself between him
+and the decision he was endeavouring to make, for the better
+termination of which he was carrying Christopher northward with him.
+
+Christopher, on his part, was chiefly occupied in considering the
+distracting fact of his own yielding to the wishes of a man he
+disliked as sincerely as he did Mr. Aston's cousin. Peter Masters was
+taking him with him in precisely the same manner he had made
+Christopher convey him to Marden. It was quite useless to pretend he
+was going of his own will; refusal had, in an unaccountable way,
+seemed impossible. To save his pride he tried to believe he was
+influenced by a desire to get away from Marden until the first
+excitement over Patricia's engagement had died away, yet in his heart
+he knew that though that and other considerations had joined forces
+with the millionaire's mandate, yet in any case he would have had to
+bow to the will of the man who admitted no possibility of refusal. He
+had been unprepared and unready twice over: in the matter of the
+journey from London and in the stranger matter of this present
+journey. Christopher determined the third time he would be on guard,
+that in all events, reason should have her say in the case.
+
+They were going direct to Stormly, which was midway between Birmingham
+and the Stormly mines, from which the fortunes of the family had first
+been dug. Stormly Park was Peter's only permanent residence, though
+much of his time was spent in hotels and travelling. The house, begun
+by his father, had expanded with the fortunes of the son. It stood
+remote from town or village. It was neither a palace nor a glorified
+villa, but just a substantial house, with an unprepossessing exterior,
+and all the marvels of modern luxury within. The short private railway
+by which it was approaching ran through an ugly tract of country
+terminating beneath a high belt of trees that shut off the western sun
+and were flanked by granite walls.
+
+On the platform of the minute station two porters in private uniform
+received them.
+
+"I generally walk up if I'm not in a hurry," said Peter Masters
+abruptly.
+
+He had not spoken since they left Birmingham, where a packet of
+letters had been brought him, to which he gave his undivided
+attention. With a curt nod to the men, with whom he exchanged no word
+at all, he led the way from the siding across a black, gritty road
+and unlocking a door in the wall ushered Christopher into Stormly
+Park.
+
+The belt of trees was planted on a ridge of ground that sloped towards
+the road and formed a second barrier between the world without and the
+world within. When they had crossed the ridge and looked down on the
+Park itself Christopher gave a gasp of astonishment. It stretched out
+before him in the sunset light a wide expanse of green land, with
+stately clumps of trees and long vistas of avenues that led nowhere.
+It was like some jewel in the wide circling belt of trees. It was so
+strange a contrast to the sordid country without, that the effect was
+amazing. Christopher looked round involuntarily to see by what passage
+he had passed from that unpleasing world to this sunkissed land of
+beauty.
+
+Peter Masters saw the effect produced and his lips twitched with a
+little smile of pleasure.
+
+"My grandfather planted the place," he said. "He understood those
+things. I don't. But it's pretty. My mother, Evelyn Aston, you know,
+used to always travel by night if she could, she disliked the country
+round so much."
+
+"It is rather a striking contrast," Christopher agreed.
+
+They passed through a clump of chestnuts just breaking into leaf.
+
+"There is coal here," said Peter. "It will all have to go some day. I
+make no additions now."
+
+They came suddenly on the house, which was built of grey pointed
+stone, its low-angle slate roof hidden behind a high balustrading. The
+centre part was evidently the original house and long curved wings had
+been extended on either side. There was no sign of life about the
+place, nor did it carry the placid sense of repose that haunts old
+houses. Stormly Park had an air of waiting; a certain grim expectation
+lurked behind the over-mantled windows and closed doors. It was as if
+it watched for the fate foreshadowed in its owner's words. Even the
+glorious sunlight pouring over it failed to give it a sense of warm
+living life.
+
+It filled Christopher with curiosity and a desire to explore the grey
+fastness and trim level lawns beyond. Some living eyes watched,
+however, for the front door swung open as they approached and two
+footmen came out. Christopher again noted Peter Masters did not speak
+to them or appear to notice their presence. On the steps he paused,
+and stood aside.
+
+"Go in," he said when his visitor hesitated.
+
+Christopher obeyed.
+
+The interior was almost as great a contrast to the exterior as the
+Park was to the surrounding country. It was rich with colour and
+warmth and comfort.
+
+They were met by a thin, straightened-looking individual, who murmured
+a greeting to which Peter Masters paid no attention.
+
+He turned to Christopher.
+
+"This is Mr. Dreket, my secretary. Dreket, show Mr. ----" for an
+imperceptible moment he paused--"Mr. Aston his room and explain the
+ways of the place to him. I've some letters to see to."
+
+He turned aside down a long corridor. Christopher and the secretary
+looked at each other.
+
+"I shan't be sorry for a wash and brush up," said Christopher,
+smiling.
+
+The other gave a little sigh, expressive more of relief than fatigue,
+and led the way upstairs. As they went up the wide marble steps Mr.
+Masters reappeared and stood for a moment in the shadow of an arch
+watching the dark, erect young head till it was out of sight, then he
+retraced his steps and disappeared in his own room.
+
+Christopher did not see him again till dinner-time. The two dined
+together at a small table that was an oasis in a desert of space. The
+room was hung with modern pictures set in unpolished wood panelling.
+Peter vaguely apologised for them to one accustomed to the company of
+the masterpieces of the dead.
+
+"I'm no judge. I should be taken in if I bought old ones," he said.
+"So I buy new, provided they are by possible men. They may be worth
+something, some day, eh?"
+
+"They are very good to look at now," Christopher answered, a little
+shyly, looking at a vast sea-scape which seemed to cool the room with
+a fresh breeze.
+
+"You Astons would have beaten me anyhow," pursued Peter. "I've got
+nothing old: but the new's the best of its kind."
+
+Christopher found this was true. Everything in the house was modern.
+There was no reproduction, no imitation. It was all solidly and
+emphatically modern: glass, china, furniture, books, pictures, the
+silk hangings, the white statuary in the orangery: all modern. There
+was nothing poor or mean or artistically bad, but the whole gave an
+impression of life yet to be lived, an incompleteness that was
+baffling in its obscurity.
+
+Peter Masters talked much of events, of material things, of himself,
+but never of mankind in general. He spoke of no friends, or
+neighbours: he appeared to be served by machines, to stand alone in
+life, unconscious of his isolation. They played billiards in the
+evening and the host had an easy victory, and gave Christopher a
+practical lesson in the one game he had found time to master.
+
+"I've work to do. Breakfast to-morrow at 8 sharp. You are going to
+Birmingham with me."
+
+No question about it or pretence of asking his visitor's wishes.
+Christopher did not resent that, but he resented his growing inability
+to resist. He flung open the windows of his room and looked out.
+Eastward there was a glow in the sky over the great sleepless city:
+northward a still nearer glow from a foundry, he thought, but westward
+the parkland was silvered with moonlight and black with shadows, which
+under the groups of chestnuts seemed like moving shapes.
+
+He leant out far and the cold night air shivered by. That was familiar
+and good to feel, but the glare northward caught his eyes again, and
+held him fascinated. It rose and fell, now blushing softly against a
+velvet sky, now flaring angrily to heaven. It seemed to quiver with
+voices that were harsh and threatening. It filled Christopher's heart
+with unreasonable horror against which he struggled in vain, as with
+the dim terror of a stranger. At last he closed the window and shut it
+out.
+
+"I don't like it," said Christopher half aloud. "It's all right, it's
+only a foundry, but I hate it."
+
+With that he went to bed and in the dark the dance of the fires
+flickered before his eyes.
+
+The next few days were spent in gathering fresh impressions and
+disentangling bewildering experiences, and in small encounters with
+the unanswerable will of his host.
+
+He was taken to the great offices in Birmingham, and the wonderful
+system by which each vast machine was worked was explained to him. He
+was even privileged to sit with the great man in the inner sanctum and
+copy letters for him, though he was summarily turned out to see the
+sights of the great city when a visitor was announced. He explored the
+depths of the coal mines and finally spent a long morning at the
+foundry whose nightly glare still haunted his dreams. It was the
+latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him
+most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most complicated
+modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving
+inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an
+organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But
+Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half
+was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking
+workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced
+stooping forms on the outskirts. They eyed him aslant as they worked,
+for visitors were rare occurrences. He asked questions concerning them
+and received vague answers, and a new machine was offered for
+inspection.
+
+Fulner, the young engineer who had been told off to show him round,
+understood what was expected of him and did his duty. Masters himself,
+though he accompanied them, apparently put himself also in Fulner's
+hands; he took no particular interest in the work, but his eye
+followed every movement of Christopher's and his ear strained to his
+questions. Christopher noticed that none but heads of departments paid
+any attention to the owner's presence, and he would have thought him
+unknown but for a word or two he caught as he lingered for a last look
+at a particularly fascinating electric lathe.
+
+"Thinks he's master," grinned one man, with a shrug, towards the
+retreating form.
+
+"Thinks we're part of his blasted machinery," growled his fellow
+worker.
+
+Christopher passed on and forgot the lathe.
+
+"Where do these people live?" he asked in the comparative quiet of a
+store yard.
+
+"In the--the villages round, and as near as they can," said the
+engineer quietly and looked back. Mr. Masters had gone off to the
+store-keeper's office and was out of hearing. Fulner looked at
+Christopher again and apparently came to a decision.
+
+"It is difficult, sometimes, this housing question," he said swiftly,
+"are you really interested?"
+
+"Yes, I want to know what contrast they get to this. It's
+overpowering, this place."
+
+"If there was time----" began the other, and stopped, seeing Mr.
+Masters was approaching. He was followed by a harassed-face
+sub-manager, who waited uneasily a few yards off.
+
+"Christopher, I shall have to stay here an hour or two. You had better
+go back. You can catch the 12.40 at the station. Fulner will see you
+there."
+
+He nodded to the engineer and strode off towards the main offices.
+
+The sub-manager exchanged a look of consternation with Fulner before
+he followed.
+
+"We'll go this way," said Fulner, leading Christopher to a new corner
+of the great enclosure, "that is, if you don't mind walking."
+
+He did not speak again until they were outside the high walls that
+surrounded the works, then he looked quizzically at Christopher.
+
+"You shall see where they live if you wish to," he said, "the contrast
+is not striking--only there is no organisation outside."
+
+They went down a black cindery road between high walls and presently
+the guide said quietly, "Are you coming here to us, Mr. Aston?"
+
+"No." Christopher's voice was fervent with thankfulness.
+
+The other looked disappointed and stopped.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "We thought you were. There were rumours"--he
+hesitated, "if you are not coming perhaps it is no good showing you.
+It makes a difference."
+
+"I want to see where the people live," insisted Christopher, looking
+him squarely in the face.
+
+The other nodded and they went on and came to a narrow street of
+mean, two-storied houses, with cracked walls and warped door-posts,
+blackened with smoke, begrimed with dirt. As much of the spring
+sunshine as struggled through the haze overshadowing the place served
+but to emphasise the hideous squalor of it. Children, for the most
+part sturdy-limbed and well-developed, swarmed in the road, women in a
+more or less dishevelled condition stared out of open doors at them as
+they passed.
+
+To the secret surprise of Fulner his companion made no remark,
+betrayed no sign of disgust or distaste. He looked at it all; his face
+was grave and impassive and Fulner was again disappointed.
+
+They passed a glaring new public house, the only spot in the
+neighbourhood where the sun could find anything to reflect his clouded
+brightness.
+
+"We wanted that corner for a club," said Fulner bitterly, "but the
+brewer outbid us."
+
+"Who's the landlord?" demanded Christopher sharply.
+
+Fulner paused a moment before he answered.
+
+"You are a cousin of Mr. Masters, aren't you?"
+
+"No relation at all. Is he the landlord?"
+
+"The land here is all his. Not what is on it."
+
+A woman was coming down the road, a woman in a bright green dress with
+a dirty lace blouse fastened with a gold brooch. She had turquoise
+earrings in her ears and rings on her fingers.
+
+She stopped Fulner.
+
+"Mr. Fulner," she said in a quavering voice, "they say the master's at
+the works and that Scott's given Jim away to save his own skin. It
+isn't true, is it?"
+
+Fulner looked at her with pity. Christopher liked him better than
+ever.
+
+"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Lawrie, but Scott couldn't help himself.
+Mr. Masters spotted the game when we were in the big engine-room. You
+go down to the main gate and wait for Jim. Perhaps you'll get him
+home safe if you take him the short cut, not this way." He nodded his
+head towards the public house they had passed.
+
+"It's a shame," broke out the woman wildly, but her sentences were
+overlaid with unwomanly words, "they all does it. I ask now, how's we
+to get coal at all if we don't get the leavings. Jim only does what
+they all does. What's 'arf a pail of coal to 'im? I'd like to talk to
+'un, I would. Jim will go mad again, and I've three of 'un now to
+think of, the brats." She flung up her arms with a superbly helpless
+gesture and stumbled off down the road.
+
+Christopher looked after her with a white face.
+
+"What does it mean?" he asked.
+
+"The men have a way of appropriating the remains of the last measure
+of coal they put on before going off duty. It's wrong of course: it's
+been going on for ages. I warned Scott--he's the foreman. They've been
+complaining about the coal supply at headquarters. Mr. Masters caught
+Jim Lawrie at it to-day as we left the big engine-room."
+
+"Is it a first offence?"
+
+"There's no first offence here," returned Fulner grimly. "There's one
+only. There's the club room. We have to pay L20 a year rent for the
+ground and then to keep it going."
+
+"But surely, Mr. Masters----" began Christopher and stopped.
+
+"Mr. Masters has nothing to do with the place outside the works. It is
+not part of the System. He pays 6d. a head more than any other
+employer and that frees him. There's the station."
+
+He paused as if he would leave his companion to make his way on alone.
+He was obviously dissatisfied and uneasy.
+
+"Won't you come to the station with me?" Christopher asked, and as
+they walked he began to speak slowly and hesitatingly, as one who must
+choose from words that were on the verge of overflowing. "I was
+brought up in Lambeth, Mr. Fulner. I am used to poverty and bad
+sights. Don't go on thinking I don't care. These people earn fortunes
+beside those I have known, but in all London I've never seen anything
+so horrible as this, nothing so hideous, sordid--" he stopped with a
+gasp, "the women--the children--the lost desire--the ugliness."
+
+They walked on silently. Presently he spoke again.
+
+"You are a plucky man, Mr. Fulner. I couldn't face it."
+
+"I've no choice. I don't know why I showed you it, except I thought
+you were coming and I wanted your help."
+
+"Are there many who care?"
+
+"No. It's too precarious. Mr. Masters doesn't approve of fools. Mind
+you, the men have no grievances inside the works. The unions have no
+chance now. It's fair to remember that."
+
+"Is it the same everywhere?"
+
+"The System's the same. I know nothing about the other works but that.
+There's the train: we must hurry."
+
+"What do you want for your club?" Christopher asked as he entered his
+carriage.
+
+"A billiard table, gym fittings, books. We've a license. We sell beer
+to members," his eyes were eager: the man's heart was in his hopeless
+self-imposed work.
+
+Christopher nodded. "I shall not forget."
+
+So they parted: each wondering over the other--would have wondered
+still more if they had known in what relationship they would stand to
+each other when they next met.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Christopher stood for a moment inside the great hall at Stormly Park
+and looked round. It was quite beautiful. Peter Masters, having chosen
+the best man in England for his purpose, had had the sense to let him
+alone. There was no discordant note anywhere and Christopher was quite
+alive to its perfections. But coming straight from Stormly Town the
+contrast was too glaring and too crude. It was not that Peter Masters
+was rich and his people were poor. Poverty and riches have run hand in
+hand down the generations of men, but here, the people were poor in
+all things, in morals, in desire, in beauty, in all that lifted them
+in the scale of humanity, in order that he, Peter Masters, should be
+superfluously rich, outrageously so!
+
+Christopher struggled hard to be just: he knew it was not the
+superfluous money that was grudged, it was the more precious time and
+thought saved with a greed that was worse than the hunger of a
+miser--for no purpose but to add to over-filled stores. He knew all
+Peter Masters' arguments in defence of his System already: That he
+compelled no man to serve him, that none did so except on a clear
+understanding of the terms; that for the hours they toiled for him he
+paid highly, and his responsibility ceased when those hours were over.
+If Peter Masters was no philanthropist at least he was no humbug. He
+said openly he worked his System because it paid him. If he could have
+made more by being philanthropical he would have been so, but he would
+not have called it philanthropy: it would have been a financial
+method.
+
+The grim selfishness of it all crushed Christopher as an intolerable
+burden that was none of his, and yet, because he was here accepting a
+part of its results, he could not clear himself of its shadow. So,
+twenty-two years ago, had his mother thought until the terror of that
+shadow outweighed all dread of further evil, and she had fled from its
+shade into a world where sun and shadow were checkered and evil and
+good a twisted rope by which to hold.
+
+Some dim note from that long struggle and momentous decision had its
+influence with her son now. Without knowing it he was hastening to the
+same conclusions she had reached.
+
+He lunched alone and then to escape the persistence of his thoughts
+decided to explore the west wing of the house which he had hardly
+entered.
+
+At the end of a long corridor a square of yellow sunlight fell across
+the purple carpet from an open door and he stopped to look in.
+
+It was a pretty room with three windows opening on to a terrace and a
+door communicating with a room beyond. The walls were panelled with
+pale blue silk and the chairs and luxurious couches covered with the
+same. There were several pictures of great value, on a French writing
+table lay an open blotter, but the blotting paper was crumbling and
+dry and the ink in the carved brass inkstand was dry also.
+
+In the middle of the room surrounded by a pile of Holland covers and
+hangings stood Mrs. Eliot, the housekeeper. Christopher had seen her
+once or twice and she was the only servant, except the butler, with
+whom he had heard Peter Masters exchange a word. "Lor', sir, how you
+made me jump!" she cried at sight of him in the doorway. "It isn't
+often one hears a footfall down here, they girls keep away or I'd be
+about 'em as they know very well."
+
+"May I come in?" asked Christopher. "What a pretty room."
+
+The woman glanced round hesitatingly. "Well, now, you're here. Yes.
+It's pretty enough, sir."
+
+"Are you getting ready for visitors?"
+
+He had no intention of being curious, he was only thankful to find
+some distraction from his own thoughts, and there seemed no reason why
+he should not chat to the kindly portly lady in charge.
+
+"No visitors here, sir. We don't have much company. Just a gentleman
+now and then, as may be yourself."
+
+She pulled a light pair of steps to the window and mounted them
+cautiously one step at a time, dragging a long Holland curtain in her
+hand.
+
+"Do you want to hang that up?" asked Christopher, watching her with
+idle interest. "Do let me do it, Mrs. Eliot, you'll fall off those
+steps if you go higher. I can't promise to catch you, but I can
+promise to hang curtains much better than you can." Mrs. Eliot, who
+was already panting with exertion and the fatigue of stretching up her
+ample figure to unaccustomed heights, looked down at him doubtfully.
+
+"Whatever would Mr. Masters say, sir?"
+
+"He would be quite pleased his visitor found so harmless an amusement.
+You come down, Mrs. Eliot. Curtain-hanging is a passion with me, but
+what a shame to cover up those pretty curtains with dingy Holland!"
+
+"They wouldn't be pretty curtains now, sir," said Mrs. Eliot,
+descending with elaborate care, "if they hadn't been covered up these
+twenty years and more."
+
+"What a waste," ejaculated Christopher now on the steps, "isn't the
+room ever used?"
+
+"Never since Mrs. Masters went out of it. 'Eliot,' says the master--I
+was first housemaid then--'keep Mrs. Masters' rooms just as they are,
+ready for use. She will want them again some day.' So I did."
+
+Christopher shifted the steps and hung another curtain.
+
+"I didn't know there had been a Mrs. Masters."
+
+"Most folk have forgotten it, I think, sir."
+
+"This was her boudoir, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. And I think he's never been in here since she went, but once,
+and that was five years after. The boudoir bell rang and I came, all
+of a tremble, to hear it for the first time after so long. He was
+standing as it may be there. 'That cushion's faded, Eliot,' he said,
+'get another made like it. You are to replace everything that gets
+torn or faded or worn without troubling me. Keep the rooms just as
+they are.' He had a pile of photographs in his hand and a little
+picture, and he locked them up in that cabinet, and I don't suppose
+it's been opened since. He never made any fuss about it from the
+first. No, nor altered his ways either." She drew a cover over a chair
+and tied the strings viciously. "It's for all the world as if he'd
+never had a wife at all."
+
+Christopher had hung the three sets of curtains now and he sat on the
+top step and looked round the room curiously. It was less oppressively
+modern that the rest of the house and he had an idea the master of
+Stormly was not responsible for that. He felt a vivid interest in the
+late Mrs. Masters, Why had she gone and why had neither Aymer nor St.
+Michael mentioned her existence? He longed to override his own sense
+of etiquette and question Mrs. Eliot, who continued to ramble on in
+her own way.
+
+"I takes off the coverings every two months, and brushes it all down
+myself," she explained, "and I've never had anyone to help me before.
+If I were to let them girls in they'd break every vase in the place
+with their frills and their 'didn't see's.'"
+
+"Do those sheets hang over the panels?"
+
+"I couldn't think of troubling you! But if you will, sir, why then,
+that's the sheet for there. They are all numbered."
+
+Christopher covered up the dainty walls regretfully. Why had she left
+it? Had she and Peter quarrelled? It seemed to Christopher, in his
+present mood towards Mr. Masters, they might well have done so.
+
+"Do you remember Mrs. Masters?" he was tempted to ask presently.
+
+"Indeed I do, seeing I was here when he brought her home. Tall, thin,
+and like a queen the way she walked, a great lady, for all she was
+simple enough by birth, they say. But she went, and where she went
+none of us know to this day, and some say the Master doesn't either,
+but I don't think it myself."
+
+Christopher straightened a pen and ink sketch of a workman on the
+wall. It was a clever piece of work, life-like and sympathetic.
+
+"She did that," said Mrs. Eliot with a proprietor's pride. "She was
+considered clever that way, I've been told. That's another of hers on
+the easel over there."
+
+Christopher examined it and gave a gasp. It was a bold sketch of two
+men playing cards at a table with a lamp behind them. The expression
+on the players' faces was defined and forcible, but it was not their
+artistic merit that startled him, but their identity. One--the
+tolerant winner--was Peter himself--the other--the easy loser--was
+Aymer Aston.
+
+So Aymer did know of Mrs. Masters' existence, knew her well enough for
+her to make this intimate likeness of him.
+
+"Was it done here?" he asked slowly.
+
+"No, she brought it with her. I don't know who the other gentleman is,
+but it's a beautiful picture of the master, isn't it? so life-like."
+
+"Yes."
+
+He looked again round the room, fighting again with his desire to
+search for more traces of its late owner, and then grew hot with shame
+at his curiosity. He left Mrs. Eliot rather abruptly and wandered out
+of the house, but the unknown mistress of the place haunted him,
+glided before him across the smooth lawns, he could almost hear the
+rustle of her dress on the gravel, and then recollected with relief it
+was only the memory of the old game he used to play at Aston House
+with his dead mother, transferred by some mental suggestion to Stormly
+Park. Presently he saw the bulky form of Peter Masters on the steps
+and joined him reluctantly.
+
+"I want to see you, Christopher," said Peter as he approached. "Come
+into my room. I shan't be able to go to London this week to buy the
+car, so you must stay until Monday and go up with me then," he
+announced, and without waiting for assent or protest plunged into his
+subject with calculated abruptness.
+
+"This road business of yours, is there money in it?"
+
+"I think so. It is not done yet."
+
+"How long will it take you to perfect it?"
+
+"How can I tell? It may mean weeks, it may mean months."
+
+"What are you going to do when you've found it?"
+
+"Get someone to take it up, I suppose."
+
+Christopher was answering against his will, but the swift sharp
+questions left him no time to fence.
+
+"I'll take it up now. Fit you up a laboratory and experimenting ground
+and give you two years to perfect it--and a partnership when it's
+started."
+
+Christopher looked up with incredulous amazement.
+
+"But it's a purely scientific speculation at present. There are just
+about half a dozen people on the track. We are all racing each
+other."
+
+"Well, you've got to win, and I'll back you. You shall have every
+assistance you want--money shan't count. You can live here and have
+the North Park for trials, as many men as you want and no
+interruption."
+
+"But it's impossible. It's not a certainty even."
+
+"No speculation is a certainty. If you bring it off it will mean a
+fortune, properly managed. I can do that for you far better than
+Aymer. We should share profits, of course, and I should have to risk
+money. It's a fancy thing, but it pleases me."
+
+Christopher got up and went to the open window. The tussle between
+them had come. It would need all his strength to keep himself free
+from this man's toils. However generous in appearance, Christopher
+knew they were toils for him, and must be avoided.
+
+"Aymer's done well enough for you so far," pursued Peter Masters from
+the depths of his chair. "We will grant him all credit, but this is
+the affair of a business man: it requires capital: it requires
+business knowledge: and it requires faith. You will have to go to
+someone if you don't come to me, and I'm making you a better offer
+than you'll get elsewhere. I'll do more. We'll buy up the other men if
+they are dangerous. You can have their experience, too. It's only a
+question of investing enough money."
+
+As he stood there in the window Christopher realised it all: how near
+his darling project lay to his heart, how great and harassing would be
+the difficulties of launching it on the world; how sure success would
+be under this man's guidance, and yet how with all his heart and soul
+and unreasoning mind he hated the thought of it, and would have found
+life itself dear at the purchase of his freedom.
+
+His hands shook a little as he turned, but his voice was quiet and
+steady.
+
+"It is very generous of you, sir, but I could not possibly pledge
+myself to you or any man."
+
+"I'm asking no pledge. I'm only asking you to complete your own
+invention, and when it's completed I'll help you to use it."
+
+"I must be free."
+
+"You own you can't use any discovery by yourself, you'd have to go to
+someone. I come to you. The credit will be yours. I only find the
+means and share the return--fair interest on capital."
+
+"It's not that."
+
+"Then what? Do you doubt my financial ability or financial
+soundness?"
+
+The meshes of the net were very narrow. Christopher sat with his head
+on his hands. He could waste no force in inventing reasons, neither
+could he explain the intangible truth. It was a fight of wills
+solely.
+
+"I can't do it," said Christopher doggedly.
+
+"You are only a boy, but I credit you with more common-sense and a
+better eye for business than many young men double your age. What
+displeases you in my offer? Where do you want it altered?"
+
+"I don't want it at all, Mr. Masters. I won't accept it. I don't think
+my reason matters at all. I know I shall never do so well, but I
+refuse."
+
+"There are others who would take it. Suppose you are forestalled?"
+
+Christopher looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+"It's a fair fight so far."
+
+"A fight is always fair to the winner," returned Masters grimly. There
+was a silence. The next thrust reached the heart of the matter.
+
+"What is your objection to dealing with me?"
+
+Peter Masters leant forward as he spoke and put a finger on the
+other's knee; his hard, keen eyes sought the far recesses of his son's
+mind, but they did not sink deep enough to read his soul. Christopher
+struggled with the impetuous words, the direct bare truth that sought
+for utterance. Truth was too pure and subtle a thing to give back
+here. When he answered it was in his old deliberate manner, as he had
+answered Fulner--as he would invariably answer when he mistrusted his
+own judgment.
+
+"If I told you my objections you would not care for them or understand
+them. You would think them folly. I won't defend them. I won't offer
+them. It is just impossible, but I thank you."
+
+He rose and Masters did the same with a curious look of admiration and
+disappointment in his eyes.
+
+"I thought you a better business man, Christopher. Will you refer the
+matter to your--guardian?"
+
+"No. It is quite my own. Even Aymer can't help me."
+
+Peter's lips straightened ominously.
+
+"You will come to me yet. My terms will not be so good again."
+
+"Then I am at least warned."
+
+"As you will. You are a fool, Christopher, perhaps I am well quit of
+you."
+
+"I think that is quite likely," returned Christopher gravely, with a
+faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes. He went away despondently,
+however, and stopped at the door.
+
+"When would you like me to go?"
+
+"I told you: we go up to London on Monday," said the millionaire
+sharply. "I engaged you to buy a car and you must buy it."
+
+"I am quite ready to do so."
+
+He left the room with an appalling sense of defeat and humiliation on
+him. He could hardly credit a victory that left him so bruised and
+spiritless. It was in his mind to run away and avoid his engagement
+in London. He might even have done so but for Peter's remark. He
+walked across the hall with downcast eyes and nearly fell against a
+tall thin form.
+
+"Nevil!" cried Christopher.
+
+"Yes, Nevil. Christopher, could I be had up for libel if I wrote the
+life of a railway train?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Christopher led the way into the nearest room and turned to Nevil with
+an anxious face.
+
+"What is wrong? Is it Caesar?" He stopped abruptly.
+
+"There's nothing wrong. Mayn't anyone leave Marden but you, you young
+autocrat?"
+
+Nevil deposited his lanky self in a comfortable chair and smiled in
+his slow way. Then he looked round the room with a critical,
+disapproving eye.
+
+"Is Peter at home?" he asked, "and do you think he could put me up for
+a night? I suppose I ought to see him."
+
+Christopher did not offer to move.
+
+"You shan't see him till you tell me what brings you here, Nevil," he
+said firmly.
+
+The other shook his head. "That's a bad argument, Christopher.
+However, I'll pretend it's effectual. There's a man at Leamington who
+has some records he considers priceless, but which I think are frauds.
+I thought if I came up to-day I could travel down with you
+to-morrow."
+
+It sounded plausible--too plausible when Christopher considered the
+difficulty it was to rouse Nevil even to go to London. There might be
+a man in Leamington, but he didn't believe Nevil had come to see him.
+
+"You are growing very energetic, Nevil," he said slowly, "all this
+trouble over some fraudulent records."
+
+"They might be genuine, and really important," Nevil suggested
+cautiously.
+
+"At all events I was not returning till Saturday, and Mr. Masters
+wants me to stay till Monday now, and go to London with him then."
+
+Nevil crossed and uncrossed his long legs, gazing abstractedly at a
+modern picture of mediaeval warfare.
+
+"Those helmets are fifteen years too late for that battle," he
+volunteered, "and the pikes are German, not French. What a rotten
+picture. Don't you think you could come back with me? I hate
+travelling alone. I always believe I shall get mislaid and be taken to
+the Lost Property Office. Porters are so careless."
+
+He did not look round, but continued to examine the details of the
+offending picture.
+
+Christopher leant over his chair and put his hands on Nevil's
+shoulders.
+
+"Nevil, I can't stand any more. Tell me why I am to come back."
+
+The other looked up at him with a rueful little smile, singularly like
+his father's.
+
+"You were not always so dense, Christopher. I hoped you wouldn't ask
+questions that are too difficult to answer. To begin with, neither my
+father nor Aymer know I've come. They think I'm in town. You see,
+Caesar misses you, though he wouldn't have you think so for the world,
+in case it added to your natural conceit, but it makes him--cross,
+yes, rather particularly cross and that upsets the house. I can't
+write at all, so I thought you had better come back. The fact is," he
+added with a burst of confidence, "I've promised an article on the
+Masterpieces of Freedom for August. I seldom promise, but I like to
+keep my word if I do, and it's impossible to write now. If you're
+enjoying yourself it's horribly selfish--but you see the importance of
+it, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," allowed Christopher with the ghost of a smile, "it's lamentably
+selfish of you, but I realise the importance. Shall we go by rail
+to-night?"
+
+"But Leamington?"
+
+"Will the man run away?"
+
+"My father might have been interested to see the papers."
+
+"You dear old fraud," said Christopher with an odd little catch in his
+voice, "do you suppose St. Michael won't see through you? Is it like
+you to travel this distance to see doubtful records when you won't go
+to London to see genuine ones? Why did not St. Michael write to me?"
+
+"Caesar would not let him."
+
+"He must be ill."
+
+"He is not, on my word, Christopher. He is just worried to the verge
+of distraction by your being here. It seems ridiculous, but so it
+is."
+
+"Why didn't you write yourself?"
+
+Nevil considered the question gravely.
+
+"Why didn't I write? Oh, I know. I only thought of it this morning and
+it seemed quicker to come."
+
+"Or wire?" persisted Christopher.
+
+"It would have cost such a lot to explain," he answered candidly. "I
+did think of that and started to send one. Then I found I had only
+twopence in my pocket. If I had sent anyone else to the office
+everyone would have known I was sending for you and Caesar would have
+been more annoyed than ever."
+
+"I quite see. What did Mrs. Aston say?"
+
+"I think she said you'd be sure to come."
+
+Christopher nodded. "Yes, I'll go by mail to-night." Then he shut his
+teeth sharply and looked out of the window with a frown, thinking of
+the renewed battle of wills to come, and at last said he would go and
+find Mr. Masters, since no one appeared to have told him of Nevil's
+arrival.
+
+He went straight down the corridor to Peter Masters' room. The owner
+was still seated as he had left him, smoking placidly.
+
+"Changed your mind already?" he asked as his guest entered.
+
+"No, not that, but Nevil Aston has come and I must go back with him by
+the mail to-night."
+
+"What's up?" The big man sprang to his feet. "Is Aymer ill?"
+
+"No, no. I don't think so. It may be Nevil's fancy. He thinks Aymer
+wants me back. Of course it sounds absurd, but Nevil, who won't stir
+beyond the garden on his own account, has come all this way to fetch
+me to Caesar."
+
+Peter Masters was half-way to the door and tossed a question over his
+shoulder curtly.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"In the little reception-room."
+
+Christopher followed him down the passage puzzling over this
+unexpected behaviour.
+
+Nevil was re-exploring the inaccurate picture with patient sorrow and
+despair. He hardly turned as they entered.
+
+"How do you do, Peter," he said unenthusiastically, "why do you buy
+pictures like that by men who don't even know the subject they are
+painting?"
+
+"I'll burn it to-morrow. What's the matter with Aymer, Nevil?"
+
+Nevil looked reproachfully at Christopher.
+
+"Nothing is the matter, as I told Christopher, only I'd a man to see
+at Leamington and thought I could get a fellow victim here for the
+journey home."
+
+"I'll meet you in London on Monday," put in the fellow victim quietly
+to Mr. Masters.
+
+Peter looked from one to the other, lastly he looked long at
+Christopher and Christopher looked at him. Nothing short of the
+revelation Peter was as yet unprepared to make would stop Christopher
+from going to Aymer Aston that night he knew, and if he let the boy go
+back with the truth untold, it would be forever untold--by _him_. That
+it _was_ the Truth was a conviction now. There was no space left for a
+shadow of mistrust in his mind.
+
+"If you go by the mail we'd better dine at eight sharp," he said
+abruptly. "I want to see you, Christopher, before you go, in my room."
+He turned towards the door, adding as an afterthought, "You must look
+after Nevil till I am free."
+
+Nevil gave a gentle sigh of satisfaction as the door closed.
+
+Christopher laughed. The relief was so unexpected, so astounding.
+"We'll have some tea in the orangery," he said after a moment's
+consideration. "You may not like the statuary, but the orange trees at
+least offer no anachronisms."
+
+Peter Masters shut the door of his room with a bang and going to an
+ever-ready tray, helped himself to a whiskey and soda with a free
+hand. Then he carefully selected a cigar of a brand he kept for the
+Smoke of Great Decisions, and lit it. All this he did mechanically, by
+force of habit, but after it was done, habit found no path for itself,
+for Peter Masters was treading new roads, wandering in unaccustomed
+regions, and found no solution to his problem in the ancient ways.
+
+Was he, who for thirty-five years of life--from full manhood till
+now--had never consulted any will or pleasure but his own--was he now
+going to make a supreme denial to himself for no better reason than
+the easing of a stricken man's burden?
+
+The man once had been his friend, but the boy was his. And he wanted
+him. He clenched his fist on the thought. He was perfectly aware of
+his own will in this matter.
+
+Even from the material or business point of view his need of a son and
+heir had grown great of late. He had never contemplated the
+non-existence of one, just as he had never contemplated the
+non-existence of Elizabeth. He had counted, it is true, on
+overpowering the alert senses of one who had known the pinch of
+poverty with superabundant evidence of the fortune that was his. He
+had noted the havoc wrought to great fortunes by children brought up
+to regard great wealth as the natural standard of life; he meant to
+avoid that error, and in the unnatural neglect of the boy he had
+believed to be his, there was less callous indifference than Charles
+Aston thought: it was more the outcome of a crooked reasoning which
+placed the ultimate good of his fortune above the immediate well-being
+of his child. The terrible event in Liverpool that had shattered his
+almost childish belief in his wife's existence had also wiped away her
+fading image from his mind. The whole force of his energetic nature
+was focussed on the possible personality of his son. This Christopher
+of Aymer Aston's upbringing, entirely different from all he had
+purposed to find in his heir, called to him across forgotten waters.
+His very obstinacy and will power were matters in which Peter
+rejoiced--they were qualities no Aston had implanted. He was proud of
+his son and his pride clamoured to possess in entirety what was his by
+right of man.
+
+What could prevent him? He sat biting his fingertips and frowning into
+the gathering twilight without--at that persistent vision of Aymer
+Aston's face.
+
+There were plenty of men in the world who would have shrugged their
+shoulders over the question of Peter Masters' honesty, some who would
+have accredited his lightest word and yet would have preferred a
+legal buffer between them and the bargain he drove: many who
+considered him a model of financial honesty. It was a matter of the
+personal standpoint: perhaps none of them would have troubled to
+measure the millionaire by any measure than their own. Peter's own
+measure was of primitive simplicity--he never took something for
+nothing, and if he placed his own value on what he bought and what he
+paid, he at least believed in his own scale of prices. Had he picked
+up a banknote in the street he would have lodged it with the police
+unless he considered the amount only equalised his trouble in stopping
+to rescue it. Had his son dragged himself up the toilsome ladder to
+manhood (he ignored the possibility of woman's aid), he would have
+taken him as he was, good or bad, without compunction, but he
+recognised that Christopher was not the outcome of his own efforts
+only, that Aymer having expended the unpriceable capital of time,
+patience and love, might, with all reason, according to Peter Masters'
+code of life, look for the full return of sole possession in the
+result. Was he, then, in the face of his own standard of honest
+dealing, going to rob Aymer of the fruit of his labours, to take so
+great a something for nothing?
+
+Let it be to Peter's everlasting credit that he knew his millions to
+be as inadequate to offer a return as any beggar's pocket. He had no
+quarrel with himself over his past conduct, he repudiated nothing and
+regretted nothing, he merely viewed the question from the immediate
+standpoint of the present. Was he going to violate the one rule of his
+life or not? He made no pretence about it. If he claimed his son he
+would claim him entirely. Christopher would refuse, would resist the
+claim at first--of that Peter was assured. But it would be Aymer
+himself who would fight with time on his side and insist on Peter's
+rights, he was equally assured of that. But still Christopher would
+refuse.
+
+Peter Masters got up and began to walk up and down and parcelled out
+bribes.
+
+"He shall have the Foundry to play with--a garden city for them if he
+likes. His own affair run on his own silly lines." So he thought,
+ready to sweep to oblivion rule and system for the possession of this
+son of his.
+
+But there remained Aymer.
+
+Whether he gained Christopher in the end or not the very making of the
+claim would make a break between Aymer and his adopted son,--a gulf
+over which they would stretch out hands and never meet.
+
+Aymer loved him. Aymer of the maimed life, the shattered hopes, whose
+destiny filled Peter with sick pity even now, so that he stretched out
+his great arms and moved sharply with a dumb thankfulness to something
+that he could move.
+
+He might as well rob a child--or a beggar--better: he could give them
+a possible equivalent.
+
+He went slowly to the side table and had a second whiskey and soda,
+mechanically as he had done at first, then he rang the bell.
+
+When Christopher sought him shortly before dinner-time he was told
+curtly he could go to London at his leisure and purchase a car where
+and how he liked, so it were a good one.
+
+"I shall want a chauffeur with it," he added, "English, mind. You can
+charge your expenses with your commission, whatever that is."
+
+Christopher said gravely he would consider the matter.
+
+"You can send me word how Aymer is," concluded Masters shortly. "I
+suppose he's ill. The whole lot of you spoil him outrageously."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Perhaps they did spoil Aymer Aston, these good people, who loved him
+so greatly, setting so high a store upon his happiness that their own
+well-being was merged therein.
+
+While it was quite true that neither Nevil nor any other could have
+worked peacefully in the electrical atmosphere of the house after
+Christopher left with Peter Masters, it is also true that no temporary
+personal inconvenience would have driven Nevil to undertake the long
+and tiresome journey, if his brother's welfare had not been involved.
+
+The need had been great. Aymer's restless misery increased every day
+of Christopher's absence. He refused to see any of the household but
+his father and Vespasian, and though at first he made desperate
+efforts to control himself, in the end he gave up, and long hours of
+sullen brooding silence were interposed with passionate flashes of
+temper. It was the old days over again, and all those near him
+realised to the full how great was the victory that had been won and
+how terrible life might have been for them all without it. Therefore
+they were very patient and tolerant, though Mr. Aston began to
+consider seriously if he would not be justified in breaking his given
+word to Aymer and summoning Christopher back at once.
+
+He looked very worn and tired when he joined Renata at dinner on the
+Thursday night.
+
+"Nevil does not mean to be away long, does he?" he inquired
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I think not. Why, St. Michael? Does Caesar want him?"
+
+"He asked for him this evening."
+
+"What a pity."
+
+She went on with her soup, with a little rose of colour on her face,
+thinking of the secret her husband had of course confided to her.
+Presently observing St. Michael hardly touched his dinner and seemed
+too weary to talk, she suggested nervously that she should sit with
+Aymer that evening. He conjured up a kind smile of thanks, but refused
+in his gentle, courteous way, saying that Aymer seemed disinclined to
+talk.
+
+When Mr. Aston went back to the West Room a little later, that
+disinclination seemed to have evaporated. He heard Caesar's furious
+voice pouring a cascade of biting words on someone as he opened the
+door. Vespasian was the unfortunate occasion and the unwilling victim;
+Vespasian, who was older by twenty years than in the days when he
+stood unmoved before continuous and worse storms. His usually
+impassive face was rather red and he now and then uttered a dignified
+protest and finally bent to pick up the shattered glass that lay
+between them and was the original cause of the trouble. Aymer, with
+renewed invective, clutched a book to hurl at the unfortunate man, but
+before he could fling it, Mr. Aston leant over the head of the sofa
+and seized his wrists. The left would have been powerless in a child's
+grasp and the elder man's position made him master of the still strong
+right arm.
+
+At a faint sign from Mr. Aston, Vespasian vanished.
+
+Aymer made one unavailing attempt to free himself as his father drew
+his hands up level with his head. He tried not to look at the face
+leaning over him.
+
+"Aymer," said his father, with great tenderness, "do you remember what
+I used to do with you when you were a little boy and lost your
+temper?"
+
+Aymer gave a short, uneasy laugh. "Tie my hands to a chair or a bed
+head. It was all right then, it is taking a mean advantage now." He
+ended with a choking laugh again, and Mr. Aston felt his hands tremble
+under his careful grasp.
+
+"Aymer, my dear old fellow, if you must turn on someone, then turn on
+me. I understand how it is. Vespasian doesn't. That's not fair. It's
+the way of a fractious invalid, not of a sane man. Where's your
+pride?"
+
+Aymer bit his lip. He was helpless and humiliated, but after all it
+was his father. He looked up at him at last with a crooked smile.
+
+"I've none--in your power like this, sir. Let me go, I'll be a good
+boy."
+
+They both laughed, and Mr. Aston released him. The colour burned on
+Aymer's face. Grown man as he was, the sudden subjection to authority
+so exerted was hard to bear even in the half-joking aspect with which
+his father covered it.
+
+Mr. Aston knew it. He had deliberately used the very helplessness that
+was his son's best excuse for his outbreak, to check the same, and
+however thankful for his success, the means were bitter to him also,
+only he was not going to let Aymer see it or get off without further
+word.
+
+"I shall have to send you to school again," he said, picking up the
+broken glass. "I can't have Nevil's property treated like this. He'll
+be adding 'breakages' to the weekly bill."
+
+"I'll pay," pleaded Aymer, contritely, "if you won't tell him. Where
+is he?"
+
+"Gone to London, of all the preposterous things; so Renata says. She
+expects him back to-morrow, I suppose Bowden will look after him, but
+I should have wired to them had I known he was going."
+
+He seemed really a little worried, and Aymer laughed.
+
+"What a family, St. Michael! Nevil can look after himself a good deal
+better than you think. He puts it on to get more attention."
+
+"Do you think he is jealous?"
+
+"Not an ounce of it in him. I have the monopoly of that," he added,
+with a sharp sigh, and then, without any warning, he caught his
+father's arm and pulled him near.
+
+"Father," his voice was hoarse and unsteady, "if Peter tells
+Christopher, what will happen? I can't think it out steadily. I can't
+face it."
+
+Mr. Aston knelt by him and put his hand on his shoulder, concealing
+his own distress at this unheard-of breakdown.
+
+"My dear boy, it would not make the slightest difference to
+Christopher. I'm seriously afraid he'd tell Peter to go to the
+devil--and he'd come home by the next train. He'd never accept him."
+
+"He'd never forget," persisted Aymer, the sleeping agony of long years
+shining in his eyes. "It would not be the same, father. He would not
+be--mine. I could not pretend it if he knew. Peter would be there
+between us--always as he was----"
+
+He broke off and took up the thread with a still sharper note of pain,
+"Father, can't you understand. I don't mind a woman. He'll love and
+marry some day: it's his right. I don't grudge that. But another
+father--his real one. Oh, My God, mayn't I keep even this for myself?"
+He hid his face on the cushions, all the wild jealousy of his nature
+struggling with his pride.
+
+His father put his arm round him, hardly able to credit the meaning of
+the crisis. Was that white scar on his son's forehead no memorial to a
+dead jealousy, but only an expression of a slumbering passion?
+
+"Aymer, old fellow, listen. Peter isn't going to tell, I feel sure of
+it. And it would make no difference. You must allow I know something
+of men. I give you my word of honour, Aymer, I know it would make no
+difference to Christopher. You wrong him. You will always be first
+with him."
+
+"It's not Christopher," returned Aymer, lifting hard, haggard eyes
+to his father, "it's myself. Twice in my life I've wanted
+something--someone for myself alone. Elizabeth--and now Christopher!
+It's I who can't share."
+
+"Jealousy, cruel as the grave." Involuntarily the words escaped Mr.
+Aston.
+
+"More cruel."
+
+He dropped his head again. St. Michael continued to kneel by him in
+silence. The elementary forces of nature are hard matters with which
+to deal. Silence, sympathy, and the loan of mental strength were all
+he could offer.
+
+It came to his mind in the quiet stillness how in just such a crisis
+as this, when he was not at hand to help the same cruel passion had
+wrought the irrevocable havoc with his son's life. He looked at the
+dark head pressed on the pillows and remembered his young wife's
+half-laughing pride in her first-born's copper coloured aureole of
+hair. He recollected the day he had first held him in his arms,
+himself but just arrived at man's estate, and this helpless little
+baby given into his power and keeping. He had done his best: God knows
+how humbly he confessed that more than truthful Truth, yet even all
+his love had failed to save that little red-haired baby from this ...
+jealousy, cruel as the grave! Perhaps he had been too young a father
+to deal with it at first. Was it his failure or were there greater
+forces behind--the forces of ages of other failures for which poor
+Aymer paid....
+
+Aymer moved till his head rested against his father's arm, like a
+tired child. Presently he looked up rather shamefacedly.
+
+"It's over. What a fool I've been. Don't tell Christopher, father."
+
+A faint reflection of what Aymer considered his own terrible monopoly,
+caught poor St. Michael for a fleeting moment, a jealous pang that his
+son's first thought must go to the boy. He realised suddenly he was
+tired out and old, and got to his feet stiffly.
+
+Aymer gave him a quick, penetrating glance.
+
+"Send Vespasian back, father," he said abruptly, "and you go to bed.
+What a selfish brute I've been." And when Mr. Aston had bidden him
+good-night he added in the indifferent tone in which he veiled any
+great effort, "If Peter should want Christopher to stay longer, you
+might tell him to come back--it doesn't pay to be so proud--and I'll
+apologise to Vespasian."
+
+"He's worth it," said Mr. Aston with a smile, "he and I are getting
+old, Aymer."
+
+"Negatived by a large majority, sir," he answered quickly.
+
+It was not of Christopher he thought in the silent hours of the night,
+and Mr. Aston's brief jealousy would have found no food on which to
+thrive had it survived its momentary existence.
+
+When Mr. Aston came down in the morning the first sight that met his
+astonished eyes was Christopher, seated at the breakfast table and
+attacking that meal with liberal energy. He sprang up as Mr. Aston
+entered.
+
+"My dear boy, I thought you were not coming till to-morrow at the
+earliest."
+
+"Will it be inconvenient?" asked Christopher, with demure gravity.
+"I'm sorry, but I was so bored."
+
+He stumbled a little over the prevarication. St. Michael was not Peter
+Masters, even excuses found no easy flow in his presence.
+
+"I'm delighted," said Mr. Aston, and looked it.
+
+He had breakfasted in his room, so he sat down by Christopher and
+tried to find out the reason of the opportune return.
+
+"Your letters did not sound at all bored."
+
+"I only realised it yesterday evening," returned Christopher, with
+great gravity, "so we--that is I--came down by the mail last
+night--and Nevil...."
+
+"Nevil?"
+
+"Yes, I picked him up, you know. He was seeing a man in Leamington."
+
+Christopher carved ham carefully, and avoided Mr. Aston's eye, smiling
+to himself over his promise to Nevil not to betray him.
+
+"Nevil went to London. How did--" Mr. Aston stopped suddenly,
+"Christopher."
+
+"Yes, St. Michael."
+
+"You are not to lie to me whatever you do to others. Tell me what it
+means."
+
+Christopher regarded him doubtfully and then laughed outright.
+
+"Nevil did not like travelling alone. He thought he would get lost, so
+he asked me to look after him."
+
+"He went from London to Leamington to get a companion to travel home
+with?"
+
+"Exactly. Isn't it like him, St. Michael?"
+
+They again looked steadily at each other.
+
+"And being a bit weary of fighting for the right of individual
+existence," went on Christopher, "I agreed to bring him home. Mr.
+Masters has been most kind, but he does like his own way."
+
+"And what about you?"
+
+"Oh, I like mine, too. That's why it was so boring. How's Caesar?"
+
+"He will be pleased to see you. Where is Nevil?"
+
+"Gone to bed, I expect. How he hates travelling."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He hates explanations still more, please St. Michael."
+
+"He should have prepared a more plausible story."
+
+"He thinks it quite credible. He expected me to believe--about the man
+in Leamington."
+
+"And did you?"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+They both laughed and Christopher looked at the clock.
+
+"Do you think Vespasian will let me take in Caesar's breakfast?"
+
+"He would be delighted, I'm sure. Caesar won't believe in Leamington
+either, Christopher."
+
+"But he will easily believe I was bored--which is true. I don't think
+he is as fond of Mr. Masters as he pretends to be."
+
+Whether Aymer believed or not, he asked no questions. He only remarked
+that Peter was far more likely to have been bored and Christopher had
+no eye to his own advantage. To which Christopher replied flippantly
+that it was a question of "vantage out," and he was not going to
+imperil his game with a rash service.
+
+After that he sat on the foot of the bed and talked frankly of his
+visit, and minute by minute the jealous fire in Aymer's heart died
+down to extinction.
+
+Presently, however, he said abruptly and rather reproachfully: "You
+never told me Mr. Masters had married."
+
+For a confused second the room and the occupants were lost in a fiery
+mist and only Christopher's voice lived in the chaos. Then Aymer found
+himself struggling to maintain hold of something in the mental
+turmoil, he did not know what at first: then that it was his own
+voice. It amazed him to hear it quite; steady and cool.
+
+"Why should she interest you? Did Peter tell you?"
+
+"No. Never mentioned it. One day I found Mrs. Eliot, the housekeeper,
+in a room, a sort of boudoir, playing about with holland covers, and I
+helped her. What was she like?"
+
+"Mrs. Eliot?"
+
+"No, you old stupid. Mrs. Peter Masters. I know you knew her, because
+there's a pen-and-ink sketch of you and Mr. Masters playing cards in
+the room."
+
+"Oh, is there."
+
+"Is she dead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What was she like--to marry Mr. Masters?"
+
+"Like? Like other women," returned Aymer, shortly.
+
+Christopher looked at him sharply and realised he had committed an
+indiscretion--that this was a subject that might not be handled even
+with a velvet glove.
+
+"Explicit," he retorted lightly. "However, that's not important. Now
+for something of real moment."
+
+He plunged into an account of Peter's final offer to him, and his own
+refusal.
+
+"Why on earth did you refuse? Wasn't it good enough?" demanded Aymer
+curtly.
+
+"No, not with P. M. attached. Might as well take lodgings in Wormwood
+Scrubs--quite as much liberty. But, anyhow, Caesar, you see now what
+you have got to do."
+
+"Get you apartments in Wormwood Scrubs?"
+
+"No. Do be serious. Give me a laboratory here and some experimental
+ground. Do, there's a dear good Caesar." In reminiscence of old days he
+pretended to rub his head against Caesar's arm.
+
+"Ah, you invented Peter's offer to wheedle me into this. I suppose."
+
+"Exactly. Seriously, Caesar, if you would, it would be excellent. I've
+been thinking it out, I could work here safely. No one to crib my
+ideas. But I must have trial ground."
+
+"That's Nevil's affair."
+
+"Well, I undertake to manage Nevil if you are afraid," said
+Christopher, with an air of desperate resolve.
+
+"I thought you didn't like Marden," persisted Caesar, fighting in an
+unreasoning way, against his own desires, "and this engaged couple
+will wander round and get in the way."
+
+He looked Christopher straight in the face with scrutinising eyes, but
+he never flinched.
+
+"I'll put up a notice, 'Trespassers will be blown up.'"
+
+"Well, you'd better talk to St. Michael, but remember, I can't buy up
+the other fellows. You'd better have taken Peter's offer."
+
+"I'd much rather bore you than Mr. Masters."
+
+"I'm not complaining."
+
+That was the nearest approach he made to expressing to Christopher his
+deep, quiet content at the arrangement that astute young man had so
+skilfully suggested. St. Michael said a little more and Christopher
+knew without words that he had pleased them both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It took very little time for Christopher to establish himself in the
+desired manner. Indeed, before another week had passed the suggestion
+was an accomplished fact. After that his actual presence in the house
+might almost have been forgotten except by Caesar. Mr. Masters' half
+serious threat was like a spur to a willing steed. He spoke little of
+what he was doing, but the experimental ground was criss-crossed with
+strange-coloured roads, and the little band of men who worked for him,
+with the kindly indulgence of the "young master's whim," began to talk
+less of the fad and to nurse a bewildered wonder at the said young
+master's strict rule and elaborate care over little points that slow
+minds barely saw at all.
+
+As for the engaged couple, Christopher rarely met them. He did not
+intentionally avoid either Patricia or Geoffry, singly or
+collectively, but he was not sorry their preoccupation and his
+separated them. He did not lose his sense of possessorship of
+Patricia: in his innermost mind she was still his, and Geoffry was but
+the owner of an outside visible Patricia that was but one expression
+of the woman who stood crowned and waiting in his heart.
+
+There was no question of the wedding, or if there were between
+themselves, Geoffry was not allowed to voice it. Patricia was enjoying
+life and in no hurry to forego or shorten the pleasant days of her
+engagement.
+
+Towards the end of September Christopher began to relax his long hours
+of work and the tense look on his face gave way.
+
+"I shall know in about a fortnight if it's coming out all right," he
+said to Caesar abruptly one day, "and it's a fortnight in which I can
+do nothing but wait."
+
+"Go and play," said Caesar, watching him anxiously, "you concentrate
+too much. You'll be getting nervous."
+
+Christopher laughed and gripped Caesar's hand in his firm, steady
+grasp.
+
+"Never better in my life," he said. "Concentration is an excellent
+thing. I'm beginning to appreciate Nevil."
+
+He spent the next five days in true Nevil fashion, however, following
+the whim of the moment, and "lazing" as thoroughly as he had worked.
+Geoffry and Patricia claimed his attendance, or Patricia did and
+Geoffry made no protest. They were supremely happy days. The three
+talked of nothing in particular, just the easy surface aspect of the
+world and the moment's sunshine, and Geoffry was secretly surprised to
+find his pleasure so little diminished by the third presence.
+
+Then one day that wore no different outer aspect to its fellows in
+their livery of autumn sunshine, the three walked over the wooded
+ridge to the open downland where the brown windswept turf was
+interspaced with stretches of stubble and blue-green "roots," where a
+haze of shimmering light hung over copse and field, and beyond the
+undulating near country a line of hills purple and grey melted into
+the sky-line.
+
+They had discussed hotly a disputed point as they mounted from the
+valley and came out on this good land of promise in a sudden silence.
+Patricia seated herself on the soft turf at the edge of a little chalk
+pit and sat in her accustomed attitude with her hands folded, looking
+straight before her, and the two men sat on either side of her. And
+over all three a sense of the smallness of the matter over which they
+had differed drifted in varied manners.
+
+Geoffry realised how little he really cared about it. Christopher was
+amused at their futile efforts to solve a problem of which they knew
+nothing, but Patricia was angry, first that she had been betrayed into
+expressing concern in something of which she was really ignorant, and
+secondly that neither Christopher nor Geoffry had agreed with her. The
+matter of the discussion--it arose from the subject of village
+charities--became of no importance, but the sense of irritation
+remained with her, and she was unaccountably cross with Christopher.
+Geoffry's point of view she could ignore, but Christopher's worried
+her.
+
+Geoffry dismissed the whole thing most easily; he did not trouble
+about Christopher's view, and he thought Patricia's a little queer,
+but then to him Patricia's views were not Patricia herself. He made
+the common mistake of divorcing that particular aspect of his lady
+love with which he was best acquainted from the multitudinous prisms
+of her womanhood. He would have allowed vaguely that she had "moods,"
+that these overshadowed occasionally the sunny, beautiful girl he
+loved, but no conception of her as a whole had entered his mind. He
+was in love with one prism of a complex whole, or rather with one
+colour of the rainbow itself.
+
+This particular truth with regard to Geoffry's estimate of Patricia
+impressed itself on Christopher with disagreeable persistency during
+the walk, and renewed that nearly forgotten fear that had come to him
+during the ride from Milton in the spring.
+
+So presently he found himself watching her inner attitude towards her
+accepted lover in the forbidden way, without sufficient knowledge of
+what he was actually doing to stop it. Perhaps some subtle
+appreciation of this in the subconscious realm, roused a like
+uneasiness and dissatisfaction in Patricia herself.
+
+At all events Christopher soon found grounds for no immediate fear and
+left the future to itself.
+
+"Shall we go on?" he suggested, marking how her hands grew white as
+she pressed them together.
+
+She negatived the proposal, imperiously saying they had only just got
+there and she wanted to rest.
+
+"You are getting lazy, Patricia," said her lover gravely. "I warn you,
+it's the one unpardonable sin in my eyes."
+
+"You mistake restlessness for energy," she retorted quickly. "I'm
+never lazy. Ask Christopher."
+
+Geoffry did no such thing. He continued to fling stones at a mark on
+the lower lip of the chalk pit.
+
+"It's fairly hard to distinguish, anyhow," said Christopher,
+thoughtfully. "There are people who call Nevil lazy, whereas he isn't.
+He only takes all his leisure in one draught."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It's simple enough, isn't it? I never feel lazy so
+long as I'm doing something--moving about."
+
+Geoffry jumped down into the little white pit as he spoke, as if to
+demonstrate his remark. Patricia looked scornful.
+
+"So long as your are restless, you mean," she said.
+
+"Well, you must teach me better if you can. I say, Patricia, do you
+always turn reproof on the reprover's head?"
+
+He leant against the bank looking up at her, smiling in his easy,
+good-tempered way. He wished vaguely the line of frown on her pretty
+forehead would go. He wondered if she had a headache.
+
+He ventured to put his hand over hers when he was sure Christopher was
+not looking. She neither answered the caress nor resented it.
+
+Presently he began to explore the hollow, poking into all the
+rabbit-holes with his stick.
+
+Christopher sat silent, which was a mistake, for it left her
+irritation but one object on which to expend itself, and after all it
+was Geoffry who should have tried to please her by sitting still.
+
+Suddenly a frightened rabbit burst out of a disturbed hole, and
+Geoffry, with a shout of delight, in pure instinct flung a stone. By a
+strange, unhappy fluke, expected least of all by himself, the stone
+hit the poor little terrified thing and it rolled over dead. He picked
+it up by its ears and called to them triumphantly to witness his luck,
+with boyish delight in the unexpected, though the chances were he
+would never have flung the stone at all had he dreamt of destroying
+it.
+
+A second flint whizzed through the air, grazing the side of his head.
+He dropped the rabbit and stood staring blankly at the two on the
+bank.
+
+Patricia's white, furious face blazed on him. Christopher was grasping
+her hands, his face hardly less white.
+
+"Are you hurt?" he called over his shoulder.
+
+"No," the other stammered out, unaware of the blood streaming down the
+side of his head, and then dabbed his handkerchief on it. "It's only a
+scratch. What's happened?"
+
+"Patricia mistook you for a rabbit, I think," returned Christopher
+grimly and added to her in a low voice, "Do you know you struck him,
+Patricia?"
+
+She gave a shiver and put her hands to her face. Even then he did not
+leave go of her wrists.
+
+"A happy fluke you didn't aim so well as I did," called Geoffry,
+unsteadily coming towards them.
+
+"Don't come," said Christopher sharply. "Wait a moment. Patricia," he
+tried to pull her hands from her face: her golden head dropped against
+his shoulder and he put his arms round her.
+
+"What is the matter with Patricia. Is she ill?" asked Geoffry at his
+shoulder, his voice altered and strained.
+
+"It's all right now. Sorry I wasn't quicker, Geoffry. Don't touch her
+yet."
+
+But Geoffry was hard pressed already not to thrust the other aside,
+and he laid his hand on the girl's arm. Christopher never offered to
+move.
+
+"Patricia, what's the matter. You haven't really hurt me, you know.
+What on earth were you doing?"
+
+But she gave no sign she heard him. Only her hands clung close to
+Christopher and she trembled a little.
+
+"She is ill," cried Geoffry quickly. "Put her down, Christopher, she's
+faint."
+
+"No, she is not," returned the other through clenched teeth, "she will
+be all right directly, if you'll give her time. For heaven's sake go
+away, man. Don't let her see you like that. Don't you know your head
+is cut."
+
+Geoffry put up his hand mechanically, and found plentiful evidence of
+this truth, but he was still bewildered as to what had actually
+happened, and he was aching with desire to take her from Christopher's
+hold.
+
+"It was just an accident," he protested. "She didn't mean to hit me,
+of course. Let her lie down."
+
+"She did mean to hit you, just at the moment," returned the other,
+very quietly, "haven't you been told. Oh, do go away, there's a good
+fellow. I'll explain presently."
+
+He was sick with dread lest Patricia should give way to one of her
+terrible paroxysms of sorrow before them both. She was trembling all
+over and he did not know how much self-control she had gained. Then
+suddenly he understood what was the real trouble with poor Geoffry.
+
+"Don't mind my holding her, Geoffry," he went on swiftly, "I've seen
+her like this before and understand, and I can always stop her, but
+she mustn't see you like that first."
+
+Geoffry stood biting his lip and then turned abruptly on his heel and
+left them--and for all his relief at his departure, Christopher felt a
+faint glow of contempt at his obedience.
+
+"Is he gone?" Patricia lifted her white face and black-rimmed eyes to
+his.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Did I hurt him?"
+
+"Not seriously. Sorry I was not quicker, Patricia."
+
+"I did not even know myself," she answered, wearily. "Christopher, why
+was I born? Why didn't someone let me die?"
+
+He gave her a little shake. "Don't talk like a baby. But, Patricia,
+how is it Geoffry doesn't know?"
+
+She looked round with languid interest.
+
+"Why did he go?"
+
+"I sent him away."
+
+"He went?"
+
+"What else could he do?"
+
+She made no further remark, but sat clasping and unclasping her
+nervous hands, as powerless against the desperate languor assailing
+her as she had been against the gust of passion.
+
+Across the wide, smiling land westward a closed shadow, sharp of
+outline and rapid of flight, drove across the stubble field, sank in
+an intervening valley, and skimmed again over the close green turf to
+their feet as it touched the edge of the chalk pit. She shivered a
+little.
+
+"Take me home, Christopher."
+
+He helped her up and with steady hands assisted her to smooth her hair
+and put on her hat, and then they turned and walked back along the
+path they had come. Christopher was greatly troubled. It seemed to
+him incredible that Geoffry had been left in ignorance of this cruel
+inheritance. He tried to gauge the effect of it on his apparently
+unsuspecting mind and was uneasy and dissatisfied over the result.
+
+"Someone must explain to Geoffry," he said presently; "will you like
+him to come over to-night and tell him yourself, Patricia?"
+
+"I don't want to see him." There was a deep note of fatigue in her
+voice, also a new accent of indifference. Her mind was in no way
+occupied with her lover's attitude towards the unhappy episode.
+
+"Someone's got to see him and explain. It's only fair," persisted
+Christopher resolutely.
+
+"What is there to explain. What does it matter?"
+
+"He thinks it was an accident."
+
+She walked on a little quicker.
+
+"Patricia, you must tell him."
+
+Then she turned and faced him, and her pallor was burnt out with red.
+
+"Christopher, I will not see him. I can't. What's the use? What can he
+do?"
+
+"He must learn how to help you, learn how to stop it," he said
+doggedly.
+
+She gave a curious, choking laugh. "Geoffry stop it? Don't be absurd,
+Christopher. You know he'd make me ten times worse if he tried.
+Anyhow, I'm not going to marry him."
+
+"Patricia!"
+
+"Don't, don't. I can't bear anything now. But I won't marry him, or
+anyone. It's not safe."
+
+She went on down the path swiftly, without looking back, hardly
+conscious of the tears falling from her brimming eyes. Christopher
+followed her silently, furious with himself because of some
+unreasoning exultation in his heart, some clamorous sense of kinship
+with the golden land and laden earth that had been absent as they
+came, but it died when, presently emerging from the wood on to the
+park land facing Marden, she turned to him again regardless of her
+tears.
+
+"He won't want to marry me now, anyhow," she said wistfully, with a
+child's appealing look of distress.
+
+A great pity welled up in his heart and drowned the last thought of
+self, carrying visions of the cruel isolation this grim inheritage
+might entail on her, and he had hard work to refrain from taking her
+in his arms then and there to hold for ever shielded from the
+relentless pressure of her life. The temptation was more subtle and
+harder to withstand than on the sunny, gorse-covered cliff at Milton,
+for it was her need and her pain that cried for help and love, and she
+who suffered because he withstood. He could in no wise see what course
+he was to take beyond the minute, but he knew quite clearly what
+course he must not take, and such surety was the reward he won from
+that other fight.
+
+He answered her appeal now with quite other words than those she
+perhaps sought, and it was the hardest pang of all to know it and
+recognise the vague discomfort in her eyes.
+
+"You mustn't be unfair to Geoffry, Patricia. You haven't any right to
+say that. He will want to do his best for you when he understands."
+
+"He went away."
+
+"I sent him. I--I was afraid you were going to cry."
+
+Had he done wrong? He cast his thoughts back rapidly. He knew he could
+not have borne that they two should witness one of her wild fits of
+repentance and misery. It would have been unbearably unfit. He could
+not have left her to Geoffry, and yet it had been Geoffry's right. He
+walked on by her side wondering where he had blundered.
+
+"You would not have gone, Christopher, no matter who said so." Her
+directness was dangerous. She was then going to allow herself no
+illusions of any kind, not even concerning the man she loved, and
+Christopher became suddenly aware he was very young: that they were
+all three very young, and had no previous experience to guide them in
+this difficult pass, but must gain it for themselves, gain it perhaps
+at greater cost than he could willingly contemplate.
+
+"It is no question of me, whatever," he said slowly. "I've been used
+to you and I understand. I don't know how it would be if I had not
+known, neither do you, but it's clear, you or Nevil must explain the
+matter to Geoffry at once."
+
+"You can do it."
+
+"It's not my place."
+
+"You were there."
+
+"That was mere chance."
+
+She slipped her arm through his in the old way.
+
+"Dear Christopher, I love Nevil, and he's awfully good, but you are
+like my own brother. Please pretend you are really. If I had a
+brother, he would see Geoffry for me."
+
+"But Nevil might not like it."
+
+It was a difficult pass, for how could he explain to her it was of
+Geoffry he was thinking, not of Nevil. His evasion at least raised a
+little smile.
+
+"Nevil! An explanation taken off his hands!" She spread her own abroad
+in mock amazement.
+
+"Tell him yourself, Patricia."
+
+"Christopher!"
+
+He looked straight ahead, a certain rigidness in the outline of his
+face betokening a decision at variance with his will.
+
+"What am I to tell him?"
+
+"What you like."
+
+"I shall not tell him the silly thing you said just now, you know."
+
+"What thing?"
+
+"About not marrying."
+
+"It doesn't matter," she said indifferently, "he won't marry me if he
+thinks I tried to hit him."
+
+Christopher closed his mind and reason to so illogical a conclusion,
+but he disputed the point no more, and it was not till he left her and
+turned to face instantly the task she had laid upon him, that he
+realised how overwhelmingly difficult it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+"I suppose no one realised you did not know all about it as you'd
+known them all so long."
+
+Christopher concluded his simple and direct account with these words,
+and waited vainly for a reply from his hearer, who stood by the window
+with his back to him.
+
+"It's so nearly a thing of the past, too, that it hardly seemed worth
+mentioning," he went on presently, an uneasy wonder at the silence
+growing on him.
+
+At length Geoffry spoke, in a thick, slow way, like a man groping in
+darkness.
+
+"You mean she did throw that stone deliberately, meaning to hit me?"
+
+He had no sight at present for the wider issues that beset them or for
+Patricia's story: his attention was concentrated on the incident
+immediately affecting him and he could see it in no light but that of
+dull horror.
+
+"Deliberately tried to do it?" he repeated, turning to Christopher.
+
+"There wasn't anything deliberate about it. She just flung the stone
+at you precisely as you flung one at the rabbit. Sort of blind
+instinct. She does not know now she really hurt you."
+
+He glanced at the crossing strips of plaster with which the other's
+head was adorned on the right side.
+
+"It's horrible," muttered Geoffry, "I can't understand it."
+
+"It's simple enough." There was growing impatience in Christopher's
+voice. "She inherits this ghastly temper as I've told you. It's like a
+sudden gust of wind if she's not warned. It takes her off her feet,
+as it were, but she's nearly learnt to stand firm. She has a wretched
+time after."
+
+"It's madness."
+
+"It's nothing of the kind. She wasn't taught to control it as a child.
+They just treated it as something she couldn't help."
+
+"By heavens, are you going to make out she can help it, and that that
+makes it better?"
+
+Christopher faced him with amazed indignation. Geoffry's whole
+attitude and reception of his story seemed to him incredibly
+one-sided.
+
+"Of course it's better. A hundred times better. Do you mean you'd
+rather have her the victim of a real madness she could not control?
+Think what you are saying, man."
+
+"To me, it's fairly unbearable if it's something she can help and
+doesn't."
+
+Exasperation nearly choked the other. To have to defend Patricia at
+all was almost a desecration in his eyes, but he was her ambassador
+and he stuck to his orders.
+
+"She does help it. She's nearly mastered it now."
+
+Geoffry put his hand to his injured head and gave a short laugh.
+
+Christopher got up abruptly.
+
+"What am I to tell her, then?" he demanded shortly.
+
+The real tenor of the discussion seemed to break suddenly upon Geoffry
+and he was cruelly alive to his own inability to meet it. He spoke
+hurriedly and almost pleadingly.
+
+"Don't go yet. I've got to think this out. Can't you help me?"
+
+"What's there to think about? I've told you. I can tell you how to
+help her if you like."
+
+"I've got to think of a jolly sight more than you seem to imagine,"
+returned the sorely beset young man irritably, but unable to keep a
+touch of conscious superiority out of his voice, "a jolly sight more,
+if I marry her."
+
+"If you marry her?" Christopher turned on him with blazing eyes.
+
+"I'm not saying I shan't--but it's a pretty bad pass for us both. I
+know how she feels. Marriage isn't just a question of pleasing
+oneself, you see. I must think it out for both of us."
+
+Christopher began to speak and desisted. The other went on in an
+aggrieved tone.
+
+"I ought to have been told. Heredity of that sort isn't a thing to be
+played with, you know. Anything might happen. Why wasn't I told?" He
+walked to and fro, and stopped by Christopher again.
+
+"I wouldn't mind a bit," he burst out, "if it were just a bad joke, if
+she flung at me in fun and didn't expect to hit."
+
+"She has a good aim as a rule," put in Christopher, too blind with
+fury now to realise the other's unhinged condition, but Geoffry went
+on unheeding.
+
+"But to do it in a rage, and for nothing. Just a cold-blooded attack
+and no warning. I can't get over it. Anything might happen."
+
+His first indignant pang that Christopher had been sent on this
+awkward errand had died out in the stress of the moment: he was ready
+to appeal for sympathy, for help, or even bare comprehension in the
+impossible situation in which he found himself, but Christopher had
+nothing to bestow on him but blind, furious resentment. He longed to
+be quit of his service and free to give way to his own wrath.
+
+"There was plenty of warning for anyone with eyes and sense to use
+them, and there was nothing cold-blooded about it whatever, as I've
+told you fifty times. If you choose to make a mountain out of a
+molehill you must, but I'll not help you. I would have done my best
+for both of you if you'd taken it decently."
+
+"You? What concern is it of yours?" retorted the other, stung back to
+his original jealousy.
+
+"It's my concern so far as Patricia chooses it to be," he answered
+curtly. "I'm going now. You'd better write to her yourself, when
+you've decided if the risk is worth taking or not."
+
+"It's my risk at least, not yours--yet awhile," was the unguarded
+reply.
+
+The young men faced each other for a moment with passions at the point
+of explosion. It was Christopher who recollected his position of
+ambassador first and turned abruptly to the door. In the hall he
+narrowly escaped encounter with Mrs. Leverson, Geoffry's large and
+ample mother, but slipped out of a garden door on hearing the rustle
+of her dress. In the open air he breathed freely again and hastened to
+regain his motor, which he had left near the gates. Once outside Logan
+Park he turned the car northward along a fairly deserted high-road and
+drove at full pressure, until the hot passion of his heart cooled and
+his pulse fell into beat with the throb of the engine, and he found
+himself near Basingstoke. Then he turned homeward, driving with
+greater caution and was able to face matters in a logically sane
+manner.
+
+"They won't marry and it's a blessed thing for both of them," was the
+burden of his thoughts, though it mitigated not one bit his indignant
+attitude towards Geoffry. Presently he turned to his own interest in
+the matter.
+
+His first idea was that he was free to claim her who was his own at
+once, without loss of time, but that impulse died down before a better
+appreciation of facts. Patricia must be left free in mind to regain
+possession of every faculty, that was but common fairness: also he was
+by no means certain at this time what response she would make to his
+claim, and if it should be a negative his position at Marden would be
+difficult, and there was Aymer to consider. Quite slowly, and with no
+appreciable connection with the chief subject a recollection of that
+first journey with Peter Masters from London came to the surface of
+his mind, and written large across, in Peter's own handwriting, were
+the words, "Aymer's son."
+
+He had put that idea deliberately behind his back, hidden it in the
+deepest recess of his mind, with a strange content and a germ of pride
+unconfessed and unacknowledged to himself. It remained a secret
+feeling that touched at no point his steady faith and devotion to his
+dead mother.
+
+But Peter's suggestion had utterly quenched his original intention of
+asking Mr. Aston or Caesar of his own origin, as he had intended to do
+at the time of his return from Belgium. The actual possibility or
+impossibility of the idea counted nothing so long as the faintest
+shadow of it lurked there in the background. If it were a fact, it was
+their secret, deliberately withheld; if it were not, he must be the
+last to give it life.
+
+The incalculable power of suggestion had done its work and the
+suggested lie, taking root, had grown at the pace of all ill weeds and
+obscured his usually clear visions of essentials. The more he
+questioned the possible fact the denser seemed the screen between him
+and Patricia, until he called himself a fool to have dreamed she was
+ever his to claim at all.
+
+It was in this wholly unsatisfactory mood he was called upon, on his
+return, to face Patricia and give his own account of the interview.
+
+Patricia was lying in wait for him at the door of her own sanctum,
+which he had to pass on his way to his room. He would have gladly
+deferred the interview, but she summoned him imperiously.
+
+"There's a good hour till dinner, Christopher, and I must know what he
+said. How long you've been!"
+
+He followed her in and closed the door behind him. The little
+white-panelled room was so perfect an expression of its owner that at
+all times Christopher felt a still wonder fall on him to find himself
+within its confines. It was singularly uncrowded and free, and the
+monotonous note of light colour was broken by splashes of brightness
+that were as an embroidery to the plain setting.
+
+Patricia turned to him with questioning eyes and no words, and the
+difficulty of his task made him a little curt and direct in speech,
+for otherwise how could he avoid voicing the tenderness that flowed to
+her.
+
+"I told him about it and he seemed surprised he hadn't been told
+before, and he hadn't really taken in what happened this afternoon at
+all. I expect he'll write to you."
+
+A faint ghost of a smile touched her white face.
+
+"You are not really telling me what I want to know, Christopher."
+
+"There's nothing else. He hadn't got the real focus of the thing when
+I left."
+
+"I understand."
+
+She turned away and leant her arm on the mantelpiece, wondering in a
+half-comprehensive way why the stinging sense of humiliation and
+helpless shame seemed so much less since Christopher had come. What
+had been well-nigh unbearable was now but a monotonous burden that
+wearied but did not crush her: she feared it no longer. He stood
+looking at her a moment, gathering as it were into himself all he
+could of the bitterness that he knew she carried at her heart, and
+then turned away to the window, realising the greatness of her trouble
+and yearning to do that very thing which unconsciously by mere action
+of his receptive sympathy he had done already.
+
+Presently she came to him and put her hand on his arm.
+
+"You'll understand, anyhow, Christopher," she said with a little
+sigh.
+
+"We shall all do that here."
+
+"But Geoffry won't."
+
+"I suppose he can't."
+
+She recognised the hard note in his voice at once, and seating herself
+on the window-seat set to work to fathom it.
+
+"It will help me if you can tell me exactly how he took it,
+Christopher. Was he angry, or sorry, or horrified or what?"
+
+He had to consider a moment what, out of fairness to Geoffry, he must
+withhold, and choose what he considered the most pardonable aspect.
+
+"I think he was frightened, Patricia, not at you, so much as at some
+silly ideas he's got hold of about heredity. Not his own: just
+half-digested ideas, and he probably finds it pretty difficult to
+listen to them at all. He just thinks he ought to, I suppose."
+
+Again the faint little smile in her face.
+
+"You are a dear, Christopher, when you try to whitewash things. Listen
+to me. Whatever Geoffry said or does or writes, I've decided I will
+not marry him. I've written to say so and posted it before you came
+in, so he should know that nothing he had said or done influenced me
+in the slightest."
+
+Christopher gave a sigh of relief and she went on in the same
+deliberate way.
+
+"And I shall never marry at all. I can't face it again. I'll tell
+Renata about Geoffry, and may I also tell her you will explain to the
+others if she can't satisfy them?"
+
+"I will do anything you wish." Then he suddenly claimed for himself a
+little latitude and spoke from his heart.
+
+"Patricia, dear, I'm glad you've done it. It's the best and right
+thing, however hard, and if I could manage to take all the bother of
+it for you I would. Honestly, Geoffry wouldn't have been able to help
+you, I fear. But as to never marrying, you must not say that or make
+rash vows, and you must never, never let yourself think it isn't safe
+to marry, or that sort of nonsense. It's in your own hands. We are
+always strong enough for our own job, so Caesar says. Shall I find
+Renata and ask her to come to you?"
+
+They stood facing each other, an arm's length separating them, and she
+looked at him across the little space with so great gratitude and
+affection in her eyes that he felt humbled at the little he offered
+from so great a store at his heart.
+
+"Christopher, how do girls manage who haven't a brother like you? I've
+been fretting because I was all alone and no one to stand by me--will
+you forgive me that, dear?"
+
+Her eyes were brimming with tears. She laid her hand on his arm again
+and drew nearer. Her entire ignorance of their true relationship to
+each other left her a child appealing for some outward sign of the one
+dear bond she knew between them.
+
+Christopher recognised it and put his arm round her and she kissed
+him. "I'll never forget again that I've got you," she whispered, "such
+a dear good brother."
+
+He neither acquiesced nor dissented that point, but very gravely and
+quietly he kissed her too, and she thought the bond of fraternity
+between then was sealed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Matters were made as easy for Patricia as the united efforts of those
+who loved her could compass. Geoffry, in his gratitude for her
+decisive action, which lifted the onus of a broken engagement from his
+shoulders, found a substantial ground for his belief that they had
+sacrificed themselves on the altar of duty. Mrs. Leverson sighed
+profoundly with unconscious satisfaction over the highly heroic
+behaviour of them both and yielded easily to Geoffry's desire to
+travel. They eventually sold Logan Park, which they had purchased
+about ten years previously, and passed out of the ken of the lives
+that were so nearly linked with theirs.
+
+Life renewed its wonted routine at Marden except that Christopher was
+often absent for weeks together. The final experiments hung fire and
+he had to seek new material and fresh inspiration further afield, but
+never for long. The end of a set term would see him back by Aymer's
+side sharing his hopes and disappointments impartially, always
+declaring that nowhere could he work with better success than at
+Marden Court. He was five years older than his natural age in
+development and resource, and the dogged obstinacy that was so direct
+a heritage from his father, stood him in good stead in his stiff fight
+with the difficulties that stood between him and his goal. Peter
+Masters made no sign and no greater success seemed to crown the other
+workers' endeavours, but there was always the secret pressure of
+unknown competition at work and it told on Christopher. He became more
+silent and so absorbed in his task as to lose touch of outside
+matters altogether. It was this absorption in his ambition that made
+the daily intercourse with Patricia possible at all. Unsuspected by
+her, his love, lying in abeyance, was but awaiting the growth in her
+of an answering harmony that must come to completion before he could
+make his full demand of it.
+
+One day in March, when the land was swept with cold winds and beaten
+with rain, Christopher came out of the little wooden building, where
+he worked, and stood bareheaded a moment in the driving rain. First he
+looked towards the house and then turning sharply towards the left
+made his way once more to the edge of the last of the experimental
+tracks that threaded that distant corner of the park like the lines of
+a spider's web.
+
+He stood looking down at the firm grey surface from which the pouring
+rain ran off to the side channels as cleanly as from polished marble.
+He walked a few yards down its elastic, easy-treading surface,
+ruminating over the "weight and edge" tests that had been applied, and
+on the durability trials from the little machine that had run for so
+many long days and nights over a similar surface within the wooden
+shanty.
+
+It was morning now. His men, whose numbers had increased each month,
+had gone to breakfast, and he was alone with his finished work.
+
+The strain and absorption of the long months was over. He had at last
+conquered the material difficulties that had been ranged against him.
+The dream of the boy had become a tangible reality, ready by reason of
+its material existence to claim its own place in the physical world.
+This unnamed substance whose composition had awaited in Nature's
+laboratory the intelligent mingling of a master hand, would add to the
+store of the world's riches and the world's ease, and was his gift to
+his generation.
+
+As he stood looking down at the completed roadway, the Roadmaker
+suddenly remembered his own slight years and the inconceivable
+fraction of time he had laboured for so wide a result, and there swept
+up to him across the level way a new knowledge of his relationship to
+all the past--that he was but the servant of those who had preceded
+him and had but brought into the light of day a simple secret matured
+long ago in the patient earth.
+
+It is in this spirit of true humility and in the recognition of their
+actual place in the world that all Great Discoverers find their
+highest joy. It is the joy of service that is theirs, the loftiest
+ambition that can fire the heart of man, making him accept with
+thankfulness his part as a tool to the great artifices and filling him
+with love and reverence for the work he has been used to complete. As
+Christopher stood bareheaded in the rain that windy March morning, his
+heart swept clear for the time of all personal pride or
+self-gratification, he offered himself in unconscious surrender again
+to the Power that had used him, craving only to be used, divining
+clearly that achievement is but the starting post to new endeavour.
+
+At last he turned away, locked up the hut and went down towards the
+house, and at the entrance of the little plantation between park and
+garden he met Patricia.
+
+They exchanged no greeting but a smile, and as he stood on the slope
+above her, looking at her, he was aware of a great sense of peace and
+rest, and on a sudden, her understanding leapt to meet his.
+
+"It is done--you have finished it?" she cried, and her hands went out
+to him.
+
+"Yes," he said, quietly, freeing himself from the strange inward
+pressure by the touch of that outward union. "This piece of work is
+done, Patricia. The thing is there--my Road stuff. It's all right. It
+will stand whatever it is asked to stand. It is ready to use if
+anyone will use it."
+
+"Oh, I'm glad--so glad!" she cried. "Christopher, it is just the best
+thing in the world to know you have succeeded."
+
+Her complete sympathy and generous joy seemed to open his mind to the
+outward expression of the speaker, which of late, since the breaking
+of her engagement with Geoffry, he had tried hard not to observe.
+
+It seemed to him her face had lost a little of its childish roundness,
+that there was something accentuated about her that was nameless and
+yet expected. Also for the first time in his life he was conscious
+that her presence by his side was helpful. He had been unaware till
+she came that he needed any aid in what, to him, was a great moment in
+his life, but he knew it was restful and good to walk by her, a
+strange relief to tell her how the last difficulties that had arisen
+on the heels of each other had finally been met: how strong had been
+his temptation to give his discovery to the world before the tedious
+tests had gone to the uttermost limits experimental trials could
+reach.
+
+"It's so simple really," he said, "just a question of proportions once
+the material is there. I felt anyone might hit on it any day, and yet
+it would have been such a sickening thing to have someone else
+planting an improvement on the top of it within a few months. It may
+need it now, but at least it would mean the test of years, and not
+immediate improvement. Do you happen to know if Caesar had a good night
+or not?"
+
+"You've got to have some breakfast yourself first. I don't believe you
+remember you never came in to dinner last night at all."
+
+"Didn't I? Breakfast must wait till I've seen Caesar anyhow. He must
+know before anyone else, and you'll never be able to hold your tongue
+through breakfast, you know."
+
+"But I'm first, after all." She tilted her chin a little with a
+complacent nod at him.
+
+He stopped with a puzzled expression.
+
+"So you are. It never struck me--but--but," he hesitated, unable to
+read his own hazy idea, and concluded, "but, you are only a girl, so
+it doesn't matter."
+
+The look in his eyes atoned for the "only," and she bore no
+resentment, for she had met his look and read there the thought he
+could not decipher, and it sunk deep into her heart, with illuminating
+power.
+
+At the garden door, where the paths branched, she stood aside.
+
+"Go and tell Aymer and get your breakfast."
+
+"You are not going to stay out in this rain?"
+
+"You know I love rain, and I've had breakfast."
+
+Before he could stop her she had turned and disappeared up the winding
+path that led out eventually on to the open down.
+
+Christopher looked after her a moment doubtfully, but her strange
+fondness for walking in the rain was well known and he had no reason
+or right to stop her. So he went indoors to Caesar. But Patricia walked
+on with rapid steps, never pausing till she was well outside the
+confines of the park amongst the red ploughed fields and bare downs.
+The rain swept in her face and the wind rushed by her as she walked
+with lifted head and exultant heart, hearing the whole chorus of
+creation around her, conscious only of the uplifting joy of the great
+light that had broken in on her. At last she stopped by a gate that
+led into a field of newly-turned earth--downland just broken by the
+plough, lying bare and open to the breath of heaven, and beyond, the
+swelling line of downs was blurred with misty rain and merged into the
+driving grey clouds above. Behind her in an oak tree a robin was
+singing with passionate intensity. She drew a deep breath and then
+held out her arms to the world.
+
+"I understand, I understand," she whispered. "Love and Christopher.
+Love and Christopher, there is nothing else in the whole world."
+
+She had accepted the revelation without fear, without question,
+without distrust. She gave no thought at all at present as to
+Christopher's attitude to her, as to whether he had anything to give
+in return for her great gift of herself. She gave herself to Love
+first, to him after, if such were Love's will. But it made no
+difference whether he knew or not, she was his, and the recognition
+drowned all lesser emotion in the great depth of its joy. She wasted
+no time in lamenting her blindness or the interlude with another
+lesser love: it troubled her not at all, for by such steps had she
+climbed to this unexpected summit. Just at present the glory of that
+was all-satisfying, so much more than she had ever looked for or
+imagined possible, that to demand the uttermost crown of his returning
+love was in these first moments too great a consummation to be borne.
+
+She stood there with her hands clasped and the only words she found
+were, "Christopher and Love," and again, "Love and Christopher," as if
+they were the alphabet of a new language.
+
+Quite slowly the physical horizon crept up to this plane of exultant
+joy and claimed her, but even as she recognised the claim she knew the
+familiar world would bear for her a new aspect, and found no
+resentment, only a quiet relief as it closed her in. The languor and
+fatigue of the backward journey did not distress her, every step of
+the way she was studying the news.
+
+Every blade of grass and every twig spoke of this new language to her,
+proclaiming a kinship that made her rich in sympathy and
+comprehension of all humble lovely things.
+
+She was seized with fear when she reached home that she would
+encounter Christopher in the hall before she was prepared to accept
+him as the most unchanged point of her altered world. Instead she met
+Constantia Wyatt, who was at Marden with her family for Easter, just
+coming down, who asked her if she had been having a shower bath.
+
+Now Constantia felt a proprietary right over Patricia by reason of her
+knowledge of Christopher's sentiments, and her own prophetic
+instincts. She had most carefully refrained from interference in their
+affairs, however, and accepted the post of lookeron with praiseworthy
+consistency. But she looked on with very wide-opened eyes, and this
+morning when Patricia answered with almost emphatic offhandedness that
+she had only been for a solitary walk in the rain, she could not
+refrain from remarking that she appeared to have gathered something
+more than raindrops and an appetite on her walk, and only laughed when
+Patricia, betraying no further curiosity, hurried on.
+
+"Something has happened," she thought to herself. "Patricia's eyes did
+not look like that last night. She is grown up."
+
+But her rare discretion kept her silent, and when later on she was
+confronted with the news of Christopher's victory she guessed one-half
+of the secret of Patricia's shining eyes.
+
+Patricia exchanged her dripping garments for dry ones and curled
+herself up on the sofa in her own room before the fire, with full
+determination to fathom her growing unwillingness to meet Christopher,
+and to accommodate herself to the new existence, but the gentle
+languor of mental emotion and physical effort took the caressing
+warmth of the fire to their aid and cradled her to sleep instead,
+till the balance of nature was restored.
+
+It was in this manner that Patricia and Christopher arrived at the
+same cross roads of their lives, where the devious tracks might merge
+into one another, or, being thrust asunder again by some hedge of
+convention, continue by a lonely, painful and circuitous route towards
+the destined goal.
+
+The matter lay in Patricia's hands, little as either she or
+Christopher suspected it, and poor Patricia was hampered by a power of
+tradition and a lack of complete faith of Christopher's view of her
+inherited trouble.
+
+Ever since the broken engagement with Geoffry, she had bent in spirit
+before her own weakness, withstanding it well, and yet a prey to that
+humiliation of mind that accepts the imperfect as a penalty, instead
+of claiming the perfect as a birthright. Having given in to this
+attitude, she now, as a natural consequence, could but see the view
+offered from that comparatively lowly altitude, and that shut her in
+with the belief her duty lay in renouncing marriage, and also, more
+limiting still in its effect, the idea that Christopher also held this
+view in his secret heart.
+
+She wasted no time in the consideration as to whether he loved her or
+not: she was sure of that much crown to her own life; but slowly the
+false conviction thrust itself upon her that had he thought otherwise
+the long, empty months that had passed would not have been possible.
+She was too young a woman to balance correctly the power of strenuous
+occupation on a man as weighed against the emotion to which a woman
+will yield her whole being without a struggle. Looking back on the
+long days that had elapsed since the affair by the little chalk pit on
+the downs, it seemed to her clear that Christopher had avoided her,
+and there was sufficient truth in this to make it a dangerous lever
+when handled in connection with the fear of her mind.
+
+It was, therefore, by a quite natural following-out of the mental
+process that she ultimately arrived at the conclusion it was her duty
+to assist Christopher to renounce herself, and for that purpose, that
+she might less hamper his life, she must leave Marden Court.
+
+The decision was not arrived at all at once. The day wore on and the
+natural order of things had brought her and Christopher face to face
+at a moment when she had forgotten there was any difficulty about it.
+Caesar had issued invitations to a family tea in his room in honour of
+Christopher's achievement, as was a time-honoured custom when any of
+the members of the family distinguished themselves in work or play.
+Christopher served tea, as it was Caesar's party, and it was not until
+he gave Patricia her cup that he recollected she had not crossed his
+path since that morning in the rain.
+
+"Where have you hidden yourself?" he demanded severely.
+
+"You said I could not hold my tongue, so I determined I'd prove you
+false," was her flippant rejoinder.
+
+"At the cost of self-immolation. I think it proves my point."
+
+"I appeal to Caesar." She got up and took a chair close to the sofa.
+
+"Caesar, I wish you'd keep that boy of yours in order. He is always so
+convinced he is in the right that he is unbearable."
+
+"Allow him latitude to-day. He'll meet opposition enough when he tries
+to foist this putty-clay of his on the world. By the way, what are you
+going to call it, Christopher?"
+
+Everyone stopped talking and regarded the Discoverer with critical
+anxiety. He looked slightly embarrassed and offered no suggestion, and
+it was Constantia who insisted airily that they should all propose
+names and he should choose from the offered selection.
+
+Christopher was made to take a chair in the midst of the circle and to
+demonstrate in plain terms the actual substances of which the
+"Road-stuff," as he inelegantly termed it, was made.
+
+The younger members of the family called pathetically for some short,
+ready name that would not tax pen or tongue. After a long silence
+Nevil, modestly suggested "Hippopodharmataconitenbadistium."
+
+This raised a storm of protests, while Constantia's own "Roadhesion"
+received hardly better support.
+
+Caesar flung out "Christite" without concern, and demanded Patricia's
+contribution.
+
+"Aymerite," she ventured.
+
+Christopher's glances wandered from one to the other. She was seated
+on his own particular chair close to Caesar, in whose company she felt
+a strange comfort and protection, a security against her own heart
+that could not yet be trusted to shield the secret of her love.
+
+Mr. Aston was called on in his turn and he looked at Christopher with
+a smile.
+
+"I think we are all wasting our time and wits," he said placidly.
+"Christopher has his own name ready and your suggestions are
+superfluous."
+
+They clamoured for confirmation of this and Christopher had to admit
+it was true.
+
+"I call it Patrimondi," he said slowly, his eyes on Patricia, "because
+it will conquer the country and the world in time."
+
+Which explanation was accepted more readily by the younger members of
+the party than by the elder.
+
+But "Patrimondi" it remained, and if he chose to perpetuate the claims
+of the future rather than the past in this business of nomenclature,
+it was surely his own affair. Patricia, at all events, made no
+objection. She had recovered her equilibrium to find the relationship
+between them was so old that it called for nothing but mute acceptance
+on her part: the only thing that was new was her recognition of the
+barrier between them, whose imaginary shadow lay so cold across her
+heart.
+
+Constantia offered a refuge. Her watching eyes divined something of
+Patricia's unrest. She visited her that night at the period of
+hair-brushing and found her dreaming before a dying fire.
+
+"You get up too early," Constantia remonstrated, "it's a pernicious
+habit. If you would come and stay with me in London, I would teach you
+to keep rational hours."
+
+"Would you have me, really?" cried Patricia, sitting bolt upright,
+with every sense alert to seize so good an opportunity of escape.
+
+"Why, yes. I've been wanting to have you a long time. You had better
+come back to town with me to-morrow."
+
+"I'd like it better than anything in the world," asserted Patricia,
+fervently and truthfully.
+
+"I wonder if people ever grow up at all here," Constantia said,
+smiling, "you are all so preposterously young, you know."
+
+"You were brought up here yourself."
+
+Constantia laughed outright. "But I have been educated since I
+married: that is when most people's education does begin. We are only
+preparing for it before."
+
+"And if one never marries, one remains uneducated, I suppose."
+
+Constantia kissed her. "Your education is not likely to be neglected,
+my dear. Go to bed now, we will settle with Renata to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+It is one thing to produce, and another to launch the production on an
+unwilling world. Christopher soon found he had but exchanged an
+arduous engrossing task for a sordid uphill struggle. Yet if his mind
+sometimes flew back to Peter Masters' offer, it was never with any
+desire to open negotiations with him, nor did he ever remind Aymer of
+the possibility. They fought together against the difficulties that
+beset the great venture and their comradeship reduced the irritating
+trivialities of the first start to bearable limits.
+
+Since the day when he received Peter Masters' curt acknowledgment of
+satisfaction with the selected car, neither Christopher nor the Astons
+had heard one word from the millionaire. His restored interest in the
+family appeared to have evaporated as rapidly as it had risen, and
+peace fell on Aymer's troubled mind. He flung himself heart and soul
+into the business of launching Christopher's discovery, and verified
+his cousin's old opinion of his business qualities. The initial
+difficulties of obtaining the patent being overcome and a small,
+private company formed, they started a factory for the manufacture of
+Patrimondi within five miles of Marden, and a decently capable staff
+was secured to meet the slow, but steadily increasing, demands for the
+new material.
+
+After some months of uphill work they suddenly received an order for
+laying the roadways and a special motor track at an International
+Exhibition. From this plane Patrimondi leapt into fame. Within three
+months of the opening of the Exhibition the little factory had doubled
+its staff and even then could not produce enough to meet the demand.
+With the mounting strain Christopher began to prove of what metal he
+was made. He stuck to the work with steady persistence, meeting
+success as he had met difficulties, counting each but expected
+incidents in a life's work. This level-headedness enabled him to bear
+a physical strain that would have broken down the nerve of any man
+more subject to outward conditions. A large proportion of extra work
+was entailed on him by the starting point of Patrimondi being so
+distant from London, but he resisted all suggestions to move it nearer
+town, or make his own headquarters there, or take any step that would
+serve to separate Aymer from easy contact with the work that made so
+great a difference in his monotonous life.
+
+Since the last appearance of Peter Masters, Aymer had seemed to lose
+something of his old independent spirit of resistance. The mine of
+strength within himself, which his father had developed, was nearing
+exhaustion, and he lived more and more by force of his interest in
+outward things, and the active part he played in Christopher's life.
+But this diminution of his inward strength made the question of any
+move too serious to be contemplated, although they still vaguely spoke
+of a time when they would return to London. Mr. Aston knew that he
+himself could not face the old strenuous life again.
+
+He had dropped out of the line of workers too early, and though
+seventy years found him still a man of active habits and vigour of
+mind, he was too conscious of his divorce from the past to endure
+meeting it daily face to face.
+
+The fortunes of Patrimondi continued to leap forward by untraceable
+impulses. They were able to choose their work now, and Christopher
+gave the preference first to roads whose construction was under his
+own direction from the very foundation, and secondly to such work as
+least separated him from Caesar, but this last fact he was careful to
+conceal even from Mr. Aston's watchful eyes.
+
+In the world of workers he became known as the "Roadmaker," and
+fabulous stories of his origin and fortune were circulated. Unknown to
+himself or to those nearest to him, men high up in the financial world
+kept their eye on the young man--made no prophecies--said nothing--but
+were careful for reasons best known to themselves to help rather than
+oppose him when he happened to cross their path. But the greatest of
+all their race, Peter Masters himself, made no sign at all. No
+fabulous fortune was, however, gathered in. "Patrimondi" paid well,
+but the working expenses were great. Christopher made big returns to
+the men, not in wages only, but in every condition of their work.
+Those in power under him soon learnt it was better to forget the
+momentary interests of the company than the living interests of the
+workmen, but in return for his care Christopher did insist on, and get
+from his men, an amount of work that made other employers open their
+eyes with envious wonder.
+
+All this time Patricia held her place in his life. It would have been
+hard to trace her actual influence on his daily actions, but it was
+there, preserving his finer instincts under the load of material
+cares, linking him indissolubly to that world of high Realities which
+is every man's true inheritance. Yet he made no attempt to claim her
+and at times wondered at his own procrastination. The idea implanted
+by Peter Masters bore strange fruit, for even an unconsciously
+harboured lie must needs hamper the life behind which it finds
+shelter. He could make no advance towards Patricia while that
+invidious doubt of his parentage existed, and he lacked the
+remorseless courage of Mr. Aston to inflict pain for however
+justifiable a cause on Caesar. Also perhaps his pride had a word to
+say. If there was a secret, it was theirs, and they had not chosen to
+divulge it to him. Again, he had fathomed something of the depth of
+the jealous love bestowed on him, and his own affection and gratitude
+would have their say. All and each of these reasons arrayed themselves
+against his love. When he tried to face it first one and then the
+other weighed heaviest, till at length he called time to his side and
+flung himself into his work the harder to leave that ally free scope.
+All of which meant that he was yet but a worshipper at Love's throne,
+and failed to recognise that his place was on it.
+
+Christopher was in France when he saw the notice of Peter Masters'
+death in the papers, and he was more staggered by it than he cared to
+admit to himself. The millionaire had been knocked down at a busy
+crossing with no more ceremony than would have served for his poorest
+workman. He had been carried to the nearest hospital and died there
+almost directly, alone, as he had lived. There was the usual hasty
+account of his life, but by some magic that had perhaps root in
+Peter's own will, no mention was made of his marriage.
+
+Christopher wrote home on the subject this-wise:
+
+"It seems to me the more terrible since I think he was a man who never
+believed any such mischance could dare to happen to him. He always
+gave me the impression of one who read his own mortality for
+immortality, and was prepared to rule Time as arbitrarily as he ruled
+men. It does not look to an outsider as if he had gained any
+particular happiness from his fortune, but happiness is a word
+everyone spells in their own way.... I shall be back at the end of the
+week, for I find Marcel quite capable of finishing this piece of
+work...."
+
+Such was the epitaph pronounced over Peter Masters by his own son, and
+Aymer, reading, sank beneath the dead weight of responsibility that
+was his. The outcome of neutrality can be as great a force as that of
+action, and to assume the right to stand aside is to play as decisive
+a part as the fiercest champion. Nevertheless he held to that neutral
+attitude through the pangs of self-reproach.
+
+There was no will, Mr. Aston told him, when he returned from the plain
+business-like affair of the funeral.
+
+The news, incredible as it was, was yet a respite to Aymer.
+
+He did not trouble to conceal it.
+
+"But I am certain Saunderson knows something. Do not count on it,
+Aymer."
+
+"I count every chance in my favour," returned Aymer deliberately. "I
+discount even your belief that Peter knew, since he said nothing."
+
+Mr. Aston looked at him sadly. He had no such hope, nor was he even
+certain he was justified in seconding Caesar's wish that the fortune
+should pass Christopher by. The nearer the great thing came to them
+the more difficult was it to ignore the vastness of the interests
+involved, and the greater the responsibility of those who stood
+motionless between Christopher and it. Yet Mr. Aston knew as well as
+Aymer that neither of them would move from their position, and if they
+had acted wrongly in following the wishes of the dead woman in
+preference to the material instincts of the living man, they must
+accept the result, and Christopher must accept it, too.
+
+But he felt keenly Aymer's failure to present an unbiassed face to the
+turn of circumstances.
+
+"How long will it be before Saunderson acts if he has any clue to go
+on?" Aymer asked wearily after a long silence.
+
+"He would act immediately, but whether that would land him on the
+right line would depend on the strength of the clue. Aymer, my dear
+fellow, try and put the matter from you. You are not going to act
+yourself."
+
+"No, but I'm no hand at waiting."
+
+That was true, and as usual the days of suspense told heavily on
+Aymer. Christopher's return was an immense relief. He had had a heavy
+spell of work and travelling, and allowed himself a few days' holiday.
+It happened that Patricia was also at Marden. She spent so large a
+percentage of her time with Constantia now that her presence in the
+house that had been her home more resembled a visit than Christopher's
+comings and goings. No one had mentioned the fact that she was there
+to him, and he found her in the drawing-room before dinner kneeling by
+the fire and coaxing it into a cheery blaze.
+
+"You are a regular truant, Patricia," he complained after their
+greeting.
+
+"Constantia maintains I am at school with her and calls me truant when
+I run down here for a few days."
+
+"Are you at school? What does she teach you?"
+
+"Subjects too deep for mere man," she retorted lightly. She continued
+to kneel with her back to him and the light touched her wonderful
+hair, that still seemed too heavy a crown for the proud little head.
+It was like molten gold. Christopher felt a new heartache for the days
+when he could touch it without fear in the blind bravery of boyhood.
+He wanted to see her face which she so persistently turned from him.
+
+"I am not sure it is a suitable school for you."
+
+"Since when have you become responsible for my education, sir? Would
+you prefer my going to school with Charlotte? You are confounding me
+with Patrimondi. You will end by rolling me out flat on a high-road
+one day."
+
+She was talking arrant nonsense in self-defence, for every fibre of
+her being was quivering at his presence. The old hushed cry awoke in
+her heart "Christopher and Love--Love and Christopher." If she looked
+at him he must see it, her eyes must needs betray the pitiful whisper
+but for the clamour of foolish words. Where was Renata? Why were they
+all so late to-night of all nights? Yet she had hurried her
+dressing--chosen her gown even, on the chance of this interview that
+outmatched her schooled frivolity. The need to see her face and her
+eyes again pressed on the man--became imperative--as something of
+great moment, strangely difficult to achieve.
+
+At last he abruptly spoke her name.
+
+"Patricia."
+
+She involuntarily turned to him and found what had appeared so hard
+was quite easy, for she discerned some unusual trouble in his mind,
+and was woman enough for the mothering instinct to sweep up over the
+personal love.
+
+"What is it, Christopher?"
+
+He had wit enough to keep his advantage, for there was something to
+read on the upturned face that must not be deciphered in haste.
+
+"I am seriously worried, Patricia. You might assist instead of
+hindering me."
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"What is Constantia teaching you?"
+
+"Me again," she returned with a show of indignation, "why on earth
+should that worry you?"
+
+"I don't like new facets to familiar diamonds," he grumbled obscurely,
+"you are getting too old. Patricia."
+
+"You are losing your manners." But even under the banter the colour
+died from her face and her hand fell listlessly to her side.
+
+"I won't allow you to be older than I am."
+
+She was saved further embarrassment by Renata's entrance, but all
+dinner time she was conscious of his silent "awareness" of her and
+was troubled by it, and it was a new and unpleasing sensation to be
+troubled by any attitude of Christopher's. Then his scrutiny stopped
+abruptly as if she were suddenly placed outside his range of vision,
+and that attitude suited her mind as poorly as the other.
+
+She hardly knew if it were by her own will or Christopher's that she
+sat with him and Aymer that evening. She was quite powerless to resist
+the request that might have been a command, and there is some pain in
+life that we cling to, dreading its loss more acutely than its
+presence.
+
+Mr. Aston was away, a rare occurrence now, and the three sat talking
+before the fire, till the dear familiar intercourse and the peace put
+to sleep the dull ache in Patricia's heart. They talked--or rather the
+men talked--of Christopher's latest experiences abroad. He had been to
+the scene of a vast tunnelling operation in which his part was to come
+later.
+
+"They suggest we should take over their men's shanties as they
+stand."
+
+"Will you?" demanded Caesar. These things were in Christopher's hands.
+
+"They might serve as material," he answered drily. "Two of their
+overseers and twenty men asked for berths with me. They are mostly
+Italians. If we keep them to make our encampment, I shall have to go
+myself. It is rather odd how these men pick things up. I heard----" he
+broke off abruptly.
+
+"We didn't," remarked Caesar suggestively after a minute.
+
+"It was not much, but it is funny how a nick-name travels. There were
+about five hundred men there still, and I heard one say as I passed,
+'Ecco il 'Roadmaker.''"
+
+He was evidently boyishly pleased at the recognition, though he did
+not conclude the sentence. The man had saluted him as he added to his
+comrade, "C'e un maestro d'uomini, non di brutti."
+
+Patricia gave Caesar a quick look and caught his answer. It was as if
+some sudden bond of sympathy were tied between them.
+
+Caesar continued skilfully to ply Christopher with questions and
+extracted the information that the Patrimondi Company was much
+disliked by the big manufacturing powers.
+
+"They say we spoil our men, and their own grumble. They sent me a
+deputation to ask us to cancel the Sunday holiday, which they never
+grant on contract work, and they feared the result of our example."
+
+"And you politely agreed?" suggested Caesar, watching Patricia.
+
+"I told them to----" again he stopped and laughed; "well, Patricia, I
+told them such was the time-honoured custom of my country and
+regretted my inability to consider their request."
+
+"I expect they only get into mischief on Sunday."
+
+Caesar flung out this with assumed contempt, but it brought no quick
+retort. Christopher answered slowly, with his eyes on the fire.
+
+"We plan excursions for them when there is anything to see or
+amusements of some kind. They are like children. If they are not
+amused they must needs make mischief."
+
+His voice was rather grave and Aymer knew there must have been
+difficulties here of which he did not mean to speak openly.
+
+"It is deplorable if our Roadmaker is going about destroying other
+people's comfortable paths. Don't you agree with me, Patricia?"
+
+She flushed up quickly, grasping his meaning at once.
+
+"Not if their paths encroach on weaker people's rights. I think it's
+just what is wanted." Then because Caesar laughed, she realised he was
+only drawing her, and flung him an appealing glance.
+
+"But we mustn't encourage him openly, Patricia, or he'll leave us no
+old tracks at all."
+
+"I'm only the humble instrument of a company," protested Christopher.
+"I merely carry out the regulations of my superiors."
+
+"Who are entirely at your mercy, you should add."
+
+Christopher disdained to reply to so obvious a fallacy. Presently,
+when he had gone to fetch some drawings to show them, Caesar said
+quizzically.
+
+"Has he obliterated any of your pet footpaths, Patricia?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The Company has great confidence in him," he announced gravely.
+
+She looked straight at him. There was a kind intelligence in his eyes,
+and he held out his hand to her. "Present company not excepted. But we
+must not spoil him, Patricia."
+
+And she understood that her secret was Aymer's and it lent her a sense
+of security and rest to know it, so that when she went to bed she
+reproached herself for her former childish moods. "I should be glad
+his strength of purpose and commonsense are so great," she told
+herself, forgetting love and commonsense were ever ill neighbours. "I
+am never going to marry, and it would be difficult to say no to him.
+To-night was just one of the best of times that can be for us."
+
+That unwise thought aroused the dull throbbing ache in her heart again
+and the reasonable salve she offered it had no effect. She slept with
+it, woke with it, and knew it for the close companion of many days.
+
+But Christopher's last thought was, "I am not going to do without her
+any longer, if I am to meet her any more in this way. I should have
+read her soul again to-night if I had not remembered in time."
+
+Aymer Aston lay awake wondering what was the matter between the two
+that they did not guess their palpable secret. He was the richer for
+another day's respite and every day was a tide carrying him to the
+shore of safety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+A chilly, rainy mist shrouded the country and blotted out the familiar
+beauty. Not a day for walking, but Christopher had chosen to tramp to
+a far-off corner of the estate on some pretence of business and had
+come back through the wet, dripping woods, burr-covered and muddy. He
+was met in the hall by a message that Mr. Aymer wanted him at once, so
+without waiting to change he strode away, whistling, to the West Room
+and came to a standstill on the threshold, finding Aymer had visitors
+with him.
+
+There were two gentlemen, one was Mr. Shakleton, the son and successor
+of the old solicitor who had played his part in the finding of
+Christopher, the other was a stout, complacent man with gold-rimmed
+glasses and scanty sandy hair, and all three of the occupants of the
+room looked towards the door as if waiting for and expecting him. A
+glance at Caesar's face brought Christopher swiftly to his side and
+established instantly a sense of antagonism with the visitors.
+
+"You want me, Caesar?"
+
+"Yes. We want you. Mr. Shakleton you know. This is Mr. Saunderson."
+
+Both men stood up and to Christopher's amazement bowed profoundly.
+
+"I am very honoured to meet you," said Mr. Saunderson suavely. "I hope
+it will be the commencement of a long and fruitful acquaintance."
+
+Christopher felt rather at a loss to know if the man meant to be
+impertinent or was merely being silly. He looked at Caesar with the
+hostile impatience he felt only too apparent. The hostility but not
+the impatience deepened as he noticed the drawn beaten look on
+Aymer's face. Also he was uncomfortably conscious of the three pairs
+of eyes watching him with rapt attention. The mild Mr. Shakleton,
+however, seemed entirely obscured by the expansive personality of the
+bigger man.
+
+"Confound him," thought Christopher, "has he never seen burrs on a wet
+coat before or is my tie up?"
+
+"Christopher," said Aymer, at last, "come and sit by me, will you. I
+think I should like to tell you myself." He looked at Mr. Saunderson
+as if waiting permission.
+
+"Of course, of course, Mr. Aston. I quite understand. It is not the
+sort of news we tell people every day."
+
+Christopher sat on the edge of the sofa with his eyes fixed on Caesar.
+
+"Are you sure it won't keep," he asked abruptly, "you look rather
+tired for business, Caesar."
+
+"It won't keep. It concerns Peter Masters. Mr. Saunderson says public
+rumour has underestimated his fortune rather than exaggerated it. He
+was worth nearly three millions."
+
+"Three millions six hundred and forty-one thousand." Mr. Saunderson
+rolled it out in sonorous tones after a little smack of his lips that
+set Christopher's teeth on edge.
+
+"It seems, Christopher," Aymer went on, with an abruptness that did
+not accord with his opening words, "that it's yours. You are his
+heir."
+
+He made not the smallest movement or sign by which the two strangers
+could gather one passing glimpse of the agony it cost him to say it,
+for their attention was fixed on the younger man. But Christopher saw
+nothing else and had thought for nothing but how soonest to quench
+that fierce pain.
+
+The preposterous catastrophe was evidently true, but surely his own
+will and wishes were of some account. He put his hand on Aymer,
+searching for words which would not form into sense.
+
+"Take your time, take your time, young man," broke in Mr. Saunderson's
+resonant voice. "It's not the sort of event a man can be hurried over.
+You will grasp it more clearly in a few minutes."
+
+Christopher turned and looked at him.
+
+"I believe I quite grasp the matter," he said coolly. "Mr. Masters
+has, with no doubt the kindest meaning in the world, left his fortune
+to me. It's unfortunate that I don't happen to want all this money. I
+couldn't possibly do with it."
+
+Mr. Saunderson leant back in his chair with a tolerant smile as if
+this were just what he would expect to hear after the shock, but Aymer
+bit his lip as if face to face with some inevitable ill.
+
+Christopher leant towards him.
+
+"You are worrying about it, Caesar. There can't be any need to say any
+more now. Of course it's out of the question my accepting it. They
+can't make me a millionaire against my wishes, I suppose. Anyhow it's
+a preposterous will."
+
+"There is no will," began Caesar and then looked at the big lawyer,
+"tell him," he added shortly. Mr. Saunderson cleared his throat.
+
+"That is so. There is no will and the fortune naturally goes to the
+next of kin."
+
+"Very well, then," returned Christopher, with blunt relief. "I believe
+he told me once he had a son somewhere. You had better find him. I
+don't want to deprive him of his luck."
+
+Again the embarrassing silence. Then the big lawyer got up and bowed
+solemnly to Christopher.
+
+"We have found him. Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, Mr.
+Masters."
+
+Christopher wheeled round on him like a man struck.
+
+"No!" he cried with passionate emphasis. "Caesar, it's not true. Tell
+them so."
+
+But Caesar lay very still and looked past them all, staring blankly at
+the opposite wall. It seemed to Christopher the watching eyes of the
+others imprisoned him, held him in subjection. He got up.
+
+"Let me out," he muttered between his teeth, though none impeded him.
+He walked across the room to the fireplace and stood with his back to
+them, his hand mechanically altering the order of a procession of
+black elephants that stood there.
+
+Aymer broke the silence, speaking with clear evenness.
+
+"Shakleton, will you take Mr. Saunderson into the library. You will
+find my brother there, probably."
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Aston. Shall I leave these?" He indicate the papers on
+the table before him.
+
+"Yes. Leave them where they are."
+
+Mr. Saunderson rose. "You must not be alarmed, my dear sir," he said
+in a forced whisper, with a glance towards Christopher, "such news
+often takes a man off his feet for a while. He'll soon appreciate
+it."
+
+"No doubt. Order anything you like, Shakleton."
+
+They were alone at last, yet Christopher did not move.
+
+"Christopher, come to me," called Aymer quietly.
+
+At that he turned and walked mechanically to the sofa, seating
+himself, again with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes absently
+fixed on the carpet.
+
+"Did you know this before, Caesar?"
+
+Aymer's face twitched. "Yes, always."
+
+"Did--he--know?"
+
+"Yes, apparently."
+
+"You did not tell him?"
+
+"No."
+
+Christopher looked up sharply and met his eyes, and again he forgot
+his own intimate trouble before the greater one.
+
+"Thanks, Caesar," he said, dragging up a smile, "it would have been far
+harder at your hand."
+
+Then suddenly he sunk on his knees by Aymer's side, and hid his head
+against the arm that had sheltered him as a child.
+
+"They can't make me take it," he whispered, "even if I am his son. But
+Caesar, Caesar, why didn't you tell me before?"
+
+"I hoped you would never know. Did you never have any suspicion
+yourself?"
+
+"Never. It was the last thing I should have imagined."
+
+"You have never asked me anything. You must sometimes have wondered
+about yourself."
+
+"I was quite content." Christopher spoke with shut teeth. Under no
+provocation must Caesar know the falsehood that had lain so long in his
+mind. He saw it in its full proportion now, and hated himself for his
+blindness in harbouring so ugly a thought.
+
+"We were never certain how much Peter knew and I've never known for
+the past three years whether he meant to claim you or not."
+
+"If you'd only told me, Caesar!"
+
+"It was my one hope you should not know."
+
+"I don't think I've earned that," he said reproachfully.
+
+"It was myself, not you, I thought of. You've got to know the whole
+thing now. Go and sit there in your old place and don't look at me
+till I've finished."
+
+So Aymer at last reached the moment when he must break the seals of
+silence--that expected moment that had hung over him like some shadowy
+fate as a foretaste of judgment, when he must retrace the painful
+footsteps of his life across the black gulf from which he had climbed.
+But as he turned his face to the darkness, there was light also on
+the other side, and he forgot he had feared.
+
+"Peter and I were friends, as you know. He was five years my senior,
+but it did not make much difference. He was a worker, just as I was a
+player. He had tremendous capabilities and he put all his big brain
+into his work and when he wanted change he came to me. I represented
+to him the reverse side of his strenuous life and he was oddly fond of
+me. Before he was thirty he had well started his fortune as he raced
+to wealth. I raced to ruin and found every inch of the road made easy
+for me. Peter came into conflict with the socialistic party. There was
+a certain James Hibbault, who was a great power, and Peter, who was
+not so heavy a power in those days, employed the wisdom of the serpent
+to crush him. He came up to London and offered me a chance of new
+amusement in abetting his plans. The Hibbaults were middle class
+people without middle class virtues. They lived a scrambling, noisy
+life propagating their crude ideas and sowing broadcast the seeds of a
+greater power than they knew. They were, however, a real force to be
+reckoned with, they and their party, because of certain truths hidden
+in their wildest creeds--truths which did not suit Peter's creed in
+the least. He made their acquaintance, and he introduced me to them.
+They were sufficiently new to amuse me, but I should have probably
+have tired of them soon had it not been for your mother."
+
+He paused a moment. "Do you remember her, Christopher?"
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+"Elizabeth Hibbault," went on Aymer slowly, "was extraordinarily
+beautiful, with the beauty of grace rather than of feature. She was as
+distinct from the rest of her clamorous family as a pearl from
+pebbles. She was an enthusiast, a dreamer, passionately sincere,
+passionately pitiful. She recognised truth as a water diviner finds
+water. She was brought up in a labyrinth of theories, creeds of
+equality, in hatred for the rich, and out of all the jargon she
+gathered some eternal truths which she made her own. She did not live
+with her people: she had rooms of her own and she was a
+black-and-white artist. But she was often at the Hibbaults. Peter
+probably knew her accustomed days. She used to speak of her faiths. It
+was like one note of gold in the discordant babble. Men came and
+listened to her and she never knew it was not for her words but for
+her magnetic wonderful unknown self that they came. She might, and
+probably did, impress men who were dreamers or fanatics already, but
+those to whom all her beliefs were childish nonsense went just the
+same, Peter and I with them."
+
+He stopped a moment and shot a glance at Christopher, who never
+moved.
+
+"I lost my interest in Peter's schemes and he ceased to explain them
+to me, but I still visited Elizabeth at her own rooms when I was
+allowed. She was very anxious to convert Peter and myself, more
+especially Peter. I was not in love with her, Christopher, yet, but
+she fascinated me. I speculated as to how it would be with her if all
+the fire and devotion she brought to a mere Cause were turned into a
+more personal direction. She paid more attention to Peter than to
+myself, and she evidently considered him a more desirable convert. One
+evening we went together to call on her and they fell into the usual
+line of discussion, he answering her in a tolerant amused way as if
+she were a precocious child. I stayed behind when he left and she
+walked up and down in restless agitation, half forgetful of me. 'The
+personality of the man!' she cried fiercely, 'he is too strong, he is
+ruthless! One cannot escape him. I cannot get him out of my head.' I
+told her she had much better tackle me. She told me plainly that I was
+a negative force in the world and my cousin an active. That was enough
+for me. I thought she despised me and I vowed she should recognise my
+possibilities as well as Peter's. If any man were to turn the
+passionate stream of her nature back on herself, or to love--to see
+the woman rise above the fanatic--it should be I, not Peter. But I
+said nothing of this to him. I do not think he ever knew it at all. It
+began in pique on my side, then jealousy, lastly passion. Christopher,
+if I had loved her from the first beginning of things I should not be
+ashamed to meet your eyes now. Don't look round yet. I laid deliberate
+siege to her heart and found she possessed my mind night and day. Soon
+it was not Peter who was my rival, but her own soul. I was confident I
+should win, though Peter, it was clear, was also wooing her
+persistently. He at least meant her well, Christopher. He loved her in
+his uncomprehending way, wanting her for the woman she was
+_not_--except in his mind. And I--I wanted her for the outward woman
+she was."
+
+He paused long enough for his listener to face clearly the portrait of
+the worn, broken woman he remembered, the outward woman that bore no
+likeness to the clear knowledge of the inner soul.
+
+Aymer continued:
+
+"At last I felt it was time to end it. Peter had been in town some
+time then. I knew the senior Hibbault and he were coming to some
+understanding, but I guessed nothing of the nature of it. She never
+mentioned him to me at this time. She stood, poor girl, between the
+two of us like a trapped creature, and because she feared herself and
+neither of us, she overstepped one snare to fall into the other.
+Christopher, I don't know what was in my mind when I went to her that
+last evening: I had not seen her for some days, but when I stood
+before her I knew suddenly I loved her, and then, like a flash, I saw
+it was neither Peter nor her that stood between us, but my own evil
+self. I told her all--that she was the victor and I the conquered. I
+was proud of my new humbleness. For once I recognised myself and my
+true place in the order of the world. But she knew me better than I
+guessed, and she was afraid to tell me the truth. She put me off with
+gentle words, terrified lest I should guess before I left her--Don't
+turn away, Christopher--At last she owned she had written me a letter
+and I should find it when I got back. Her attitude maddened me. The
+better self, if it ever existed, got stamped out. I told her nothing
+should come between us, that nothing short of death should keep me
+from her, while I could move hand or foot."
+
+The white scar on Aymer's forehead was very plain and his face had
+grown thin and sharp. Christopher for the first time looked up at him
+and away again.
+
+"I went home at last, Christopher, wild to get this mysterious letter
+to which she would refer me. I went back and took seven devils with
+me--my passion and love fighting for possession. Nevil and I had a
+room of our own on the ground floor. I think they use it for storing
+papers in now."
+
+Christopher gave a slight movement: he knew that well.
+
+"I went straight in, knowing any letter for me would be taken there.
+Nevil was going upstairs as I crossed the hall and he called to me
+across the banisters that Wayband had sent back my revolver and he had
+opened it. Revolver shooting was a passion just then and I was
+accounted a crack shot. I answered him savagely and went on. The
+letter lay on the table. She had been married to Peter two days before
+at a Registrar's office. I felt I must have known it from eternity,
+but it caught me on the crest of my fury, it overwhelmed me in a
+torrent of mad shame and wild jealousy. I had failed--had been beaten
+at my own game--beaten and fooled by some God who had used my passion
+for his own ends. Those short minutes of purer love burnt my soul like
+fire till I raged at my folly. Christopher, I'd give all I have left
+to say I was mad. I wasn't. I knew what I was doing. The revolver lay
+there on the table and an open box of cartridges by it. It was the
+coward's way out of the agony, and I took it. I shot myself--the crack
+shot of Waybands Club missed his own life by a hair's-breadth."
+
+Even then, after the long years, Christopher caught an echo of
+bitterness in the voice. He dully wondered at his own inability to
+move or speak or send out a thought of consolation to the man who had
+suffered so fiercely.
+
+Aymer gave a little gasp and was still a moment Then he went on:
+
+"That's all my story, Christopher. Now comes your mother's part of it.
+The first result of her marriage was that the Hibbaults' name ceased
+to be a power for the Socialist party--became less than a power. James
+Hibbault severed his connection with them entirely. I think Peter gave
+him a place at one of his big affairs. He had bought them out, and for
+a time the party fell into disrepute. But Elizabeth, whom he had
+married, he had not bought. I think she believed she had and could
+influence him, that she could sway him without loss of her own being.
+I know she clung to her true personality with passionate strength. I
+had failed to break it down, but I think Peter failed here also. When
+she heard of her father's and brother's betrayal of their party--it
+was nothing else--she was nearly crazy with grief. It was some time
+before Peter could get her to acknowledge their marriage at all, and
+she never, I believe, spoke of her people again. But at last he got
+her to Stormly. I know very little of what happened there. I believe
+he was willing she should play Lady Bountiful to his people if it
+pleased her--even made her a big allowance for the purpose. But she
+went amongst them and she would have none of it. She would make no
+compromise with what she regarded as wholly evil. She found Peter had
+only played with her regarding her creed--that he never had the least
+intention of altering his plan of life to suit it. She hated it all a
+hundredfold more than you did, Christopher, and the thought of
+bringing a child into an atmosphere that was rank poison to her,
+became a nightmare. Perhaps she was not wholly accountable then--there
+was no woman to stand by her or counsel patience. Anyhow, about six
+weeks before you were born, we believe she just disappeared. No one
+knows how Peter really felt about it. In the face of the world he
+shrugged his shoulders and went on with his life as if wife and
+expected child had never been. We suppose he tried to find her at
+first, but he always declared there was no need--she would come back
+when she had had enough of the world. Eventually a letter reached him
+saying you had come into the world and that, rather than put you under
+the power of your father and all he stood for, she would bring you up
+among the people she loved and pitied. My father tried all he could to
+make Peter seriously seek for his wife. We know now he had some false
+clue and that he believed she and you were living in Liverpool. But
+either from pride or indifference he would never see for himself these
+two whose fortunes he watched so closely. Saunderson tells me it was
+the younger Hibbault who supplied him with the false clue and found it
+to his advantage to keep up the fraud. They can't trace either
+Hibbault now. They seem to have emigrated. My father once visited
+Peter, before Elizabeth left him. There was some dispute at the works
+and a certain foreman named Felton protested against his orders. My
+father heard the interview between them, and the man made a strong
+appeal to him. He did his best as go-between and failed. Peter did not
+quarrel about it. He was just immovable in his heavy way, but your
+mother was greatly troubled over the whole business and was generously
+good to Felton and his wife in the face of Peter's direct commands.
+Ten years afterwards this man, tramping from Portsmouth to London in
+search of work, met your mother again. He was evidently a man of
+strong memory, and he knew her."
+
+Christopher nodded. He remembered the little narrow paths in the tiny
+garden, the smell of the box edging, a pink cabbage rose that fell
+when the man's sleeve brushed against it. The man and his mother had
+talked long and the old woman had asked him if he knew the man. The
+next day they were on the road again and he had felt a resentment
+towards this man as the cause. All these recollections crowded
+themselves into his mind.
+
+"Felton seems to have been a man with some strength of character. He
+had easily promised your mother not to betray her existence to her
+husband, but the memory of her face and some uneasy sense of unfitness
+troubled him, I suppose. He remembered Mr. Aston, who had spoken for
+him, and that he was something to do with these people. He turned up
+here one day and Nevil had the sense to send him direct to us in
+London. It was just at the time when I was wanting to adopt a child. I
+had stopped cursing fate and myself, and I wanted something of my own
+almost as fiercely as I wanted my freedom."
+
+There was another long pause. This time Christopher put out his hand
+and laid it on Aymer's.
+
+"There isn't any more. We followed up the clue and found you. My
+father made another appeal to Peter on behalf of his unknown son, and
+Peter declared the subject was not discussable: so I kept you. I vowed
+I'd never stand between your own father and you, but also that I'd
+never put out a hand to bring you together. That visit you paid him,
+Christopher, was the blackest time I've had since the day I realised
+what I'd done. I thought I had got over my jealousy, and I had not."
+
+Christopher leant over him and gripped his hands.
+
+"Caesar," he said in a breathless low voice, looking him straight in
+the eyes. "Caesar, there was no need of that then--there never has
+been, nor could be. I have no father at all if it be not you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+"It does not seem to me a very great thing to ask in the face of
+things."
+
+Mr. Saunderson dangled his eyeglasses and regarded Christopher with a
+dubious air.
+
+"I want three days to consider the matter," continued Christopher
+impatiently. "Where is the difficulty? You don't seem to remember you
+are asking me to give up my chosen life and work and take on a job
+that I loathe."
+
+If Mr. Saunderson's face had been capable of expressing more than
+displeasure, it would have done so, but he was of no plastic build,
+mind or body, and "displeasure" was the nearest he could get to active
+anger.
+
+"You have a singular way of regarding what most men would think
+overpowering good luck, Mr. Masters."
+
+Christopher turned sharply.
+
+"You at least cannot compel me to take that name. It has never been
+mine and never will be."
+
+"Gently, gently, young man. I am willing to make every allowance for
+your perturbation, but really, in speaking of my late client ..." he
+stopped with a shake of the head.
+
+"I was speaking of a name, not of him, Mr. Saunderson. However, I
+apologise. Once more, will you let the whole matter stand still for
+three days. I don't mean to accept the thing, you know, but I can't
+argue it out now. I will meet you in town on Wednesday."
+
+"If you insist, there is nothing more to be said of course," returned
+Mr. Saunderson, huffily. "As to your refusing your own rights, that
+will be less simple than you imagine, but I shall hope you will soon
+view the matter in another light."
+
+"There was no provision made in case the inheritor should refuse or
+not be available?"
+
+Christopher confronted him suddenly with the question, and the poor
+man, who was as completely off his balance by Christopher's
+incomprehensible reception of his tidings, as that young man himself,
+was evidently confused.
+
+"There were no instructions at all beyond the memorandum stating his
+wife and child were last heard of in Whitmansworth Union."
+
+"But in the former will, which you say was destroyed?"
+
+"I am not at liberty to divulge anything that might be contained in
+that document."
+
+"There is nothing to prevent your acting on such instructions at your
+own prompting," Christopher insisted bluntly.
+
+Mr. Saunderson looked at him critically. "That is an ingenious
+suggestion Mr. ..." he paused.
+
+"Aston," said Christopher. "It's the name those who have treated me as
+a son gave me, and I see no obligation to change it."
+
+The lawyer rose.
+
+"Then we are to defer further discussion till Wednesday?"
+
+"Until Wednesday. In town, not here."
+
+He left with Mr. Shakleton in his wake, and Christopher was at last
+alone and free to weigh if he would the weight of this stupendous
+burden, which he resolutely decided was not his to bear. He stood
+looking out of the window at the still driving mist and had to drag
+his thoughts back from the external aspect of things to the inner
+matters he must face. But there was no lucidity in his mind, nothing
+was clear to him but his fierce resentment against the dead man, and
+a passionate pity for a faded woman.
+
+"It was the beauty of grace rather than feature...." He was stung with
+intolerable shame for the manhood he must share with one who had
+wrought such havoc in the woman he was most bound to protect from
+herself, as well as from the world. The risks and chances of those
+early days flickered before him. He had been abandoned to such for
+some vague ultimate good to the colossal idea of fortune which neither
+he nor its late possessor could spend. Was he more bound to take it
+and its cares to himself than its author was bound to care for his own
+flesh and blood? Anger clouded his reason and he knew it. Yet if he
+could not think coherently on the matter, of what use were the three
+days of grace he had claimed? He could not endure company at present,
+and the four walls of his room were as a prison. At last he sent a
+hasty message to the motor house, tossed a few necessaries into a bag
+and wrote a note to Caesar. "Dear Caesar, I've got to make up my mind
+about this and I must do it alone, so to come to some decision I'm
+going off in the car. I'll be back when I've got the thing straight in
+my mind. Tell St. Michael and Nevil about it, but if you can help it
+don't let anyone else know.--Christopher Aston."
+
+He drove slowly down the drive, out into the highroad and, turning
+westward, sped away into the misty distance.
+
+A great stillness fell on Aymer when Christopher left him. He had
+lived so long under the shadowy fear of the thing that had now
+happened, that it was hard to credit the fear had passed in
+fulfilment. He had been forced back to face the past, and, behold, the
+terror of it was gone. He could only measure the full value of the
+effort he had made by the languor and listlessness that now wrapped
+him round, as a child who had overtaxed his strength and must needs
+rest. A hazy doubt crept into his mind as to what it was he had so
+dreaded--the resuscitation of the past, or Christopher's reception of
+it. In either case the fear had faded as some phantom form that melted
+in daylight.
+
+He stumbled on one thought with vague wonder. No barrier had been
+raised between him and his adopted son: instead he found the only
+barrier had been erected by his own lack of strength to face that
+truth until the inexorable hand of God forced him to the issue.
+
+As to the future he recognised that might be left to Christopher,
+whose whole life, since Aymer took him, had been a preparation for
+this situation. His long struggle to keep a grip on life was ebbing
+fast, it was good to leave decisions in another's hands, to rest, and
+accept.
+
+When Mr. Aston returned Caesar gave him Christopher's note with a brief
+remark.
+
+"Saunderson has been."
+
+The note, short as it was, told the rest. Mr. Aston looked anxiously
+at his son, but Aymer met his eyes with a quiet smile.
+
+"I'm glad you were away, St. Michael. You've had enough to contend
+with, and there was no need. There is nothing for either of us to do.
+It's Christopher's affair."
+
+Mr. Aston looked at the note again and reread the signature, then he
+gave it back, satisfied.
+
+"What will happen if he won't accept it?" he questioned thoughtfully.
+
+"It is for him to decide." Aymer's tone was earnestly emphatic.
+"Father, we've done our part. We can't alter it if we would. Leave him
+free."
+
+"It is the crown of your success that you can do so, my dear old
+fellow."
+
+"The coronation has not taken place yet," returned Caesar, with a touch
+of dry humour that reassured his father more than any words that all
+was well with his son.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, hour after hour, Christopher's car raced over the white
+roads. The twinkling lights in the villages through which he sped grew
+fewer and at last ceased. A more solid blackness was the only inkling
+of dwellings on either hand. Once the low, vibrating hum of the car
+seemed to bring a light to a high window, but it fell back into the
+dark before he had caught more than a faint glimmer on the blind.
+
+He met nothing: the road for all he knew was utterly empty of life. In
+the silent, motionless darkness it was like a path into illimitable
+space. He knew every mile of it, yet in the night the miles stretched
+out and raced with him.
+
+It was far from village or town when at last Christopher wrenched his
+mind from the mechanical power that held it prisoner, and realised
+that town or no town, bed or no bed, he must stop. He brought the car
+to a standstill under the lea of a low ridge of downs, at a point
+where an old chalk pit reared its white face, glimmering faintly in
+the darkness. He hazarded a fair guess as to his whereabouts.
+Whitmansworth must be fifteen or twenty miles ahead. It was nearly
+midnight now. He would get no lodging even if he went on. He backed
+the car off the road into the circle of the chalk pit, made as
+comfortable a resting place as he could with rugs and cushions between
+the motor and the white wall, and extinguished the lamps. The cool,
+still night had him to herself, and cradled him to sleep as a mother
+her child, under the folds of her dark mantle.
+
+He woke when the first fingers of dawn busied themselves with the hem
+of that dusky cloak, and sound as faint and tremulous as the light
+itself whispered across the earth. He watched a while to see the dim
+shapes reform under the glowing light, and the clouds that still
+curtained the sky, take on themselves a sombre grey uniform. But
+directly the line of white road took distinctness Christopher struck
+camp, and boldly raced to meet the full day. An early shepherd paused
+to watch him pass, returning impassively to work as he disappeared.
+Two or three labouring men also stared; one even commented to a fellow
+worker that "these yere motors take no more heed o' decent hours than
+o' natural distances. Five in the mornin' weren't part o' the gentry's
+day when I were a boy," he grumbled, "and five miles were five miles,
+no more nor less. 'Tisn't more nor a mile now."
+
+At wayside farms life was in full swing. Dumbly impatient cows
+listened for the clatter of milk-pails, and solemn cart horses trudged
+to the upland fields. Presently he passed through a town where his own
+Patrimondi made pleasant, easy going. The town servants were cleaning
+the smooth, elastic surface with big jets of water. Christopher went
+slowly by with an eye on his handiwork. He fancied he saw a small
+defect at a turn and stopped to examine it. An indignant worker told
+him brusquely he needn't try to pick holes in their roads because
+there weren't any, and Christopher returned meekly he thought they
+looked good, but fancied the mark he examined was a flaw.
+
+"It ain't any business of yours, anyway," was the angry retort, "the
+men who laid this knew what they was a-doin'."
+
+Another man had joined him who had worked on the new road when
+Christopher was to and fro there, and recognised him. He plucked the
+other by the sleeve.
+
+"Shut up, you fool," he growled, though not so low but Christopher
+heard him. "It's the Roadmaker himself. Mornin', sir."
+
+Christopher gave him a few words of recognition and went on.
+
+The slate roofs of Whitmansworth came into sight as the church clock
+struck six. He could see the white Union House high on the hill to the
+left, but he had no mind to halt there. He stopped the car at the gate
+of the town cemetery. It was not a beautiful place. Just a little
+square field with an avenue of young trees and an orderly row of green
+mounds and haphazard monuments, but in one corner amongst a row of
+unmarked graves was a white cross. "In remembrance of my mother," was
+the sole inscription it bore. Christopher stood and looked at it
+gravely. The thought of another grave amongst the family tombs in the
+trim churchyard at Stormly crossed his mind. It was better here in the
+little, plain unpretentious cemetery amongst the very poor whose
+sorrows she had made her own. She would sleep more quietly so.
+
+But he found no message from her here, nor had he expected it. Her
+actual presence had not consecrated the spot for him, and he was
+impatient to gain the road made sacred by reason of the tired, failing
+footsteps that made their last effort there: the Via Dolorosa of his
+mother's life.
+
+He passed the milestone where he had waited for his fortune fifteen
+years ago, and saw it in his mind's eye hastening towards him from the
+east in the person of Charles Aston. That was the _true_
+Fortune,--this spurious thing they were trying to harness to his back
+was evil to the core. Had not that been the very meaning of those
+painful steps that had struggled away from it along this very
+road--the meaning of the lonely grave amongst the broken-down poor of
+Whitmansworth Union?
+
+He stopped the car near a little bridge where a thin brooklet made a
+noisy chatter, and sat still, his chin on his hand, thinking deeply.
+
+This was the spot for which he had raced all these hours, for here he
+and she had rested that terrible night to gather strength for the last
+mile that lay between the woman and rest.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It's better to be tired and hungry oneself, Jim, than to make other
+people so. Don't forget that."
+
+"I am not really tired," the child maintained stoutly, "but it's going
+to rain again. Can't you come on?"
+
+"Presently."
+
+"You think it is the right road?"
+
+"I don't know, Jim. I was sure of it at first, but I'm sure of nothing
+now."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The words and scene were as clear to him as the day they happened. He
+saw in it now a deeper significance, a possible meaning that was the
+last note of tragedy to his mother's story. For that note is reached
+only when the faith in which we have lived, acted and endured, fails
+us. That is the bitterness and foretaste of death. Then only can the
+shadow of it fall on us, and in great mercy gather us into its shade.
+
+The Right Road! There was no doubt or shadow for Christopher yet. He
+had taken the first step on the Road he had chosen, and he would not
+look back. He would not stultify his mother's sacrifice. Such faint
+echoes as he heard calling him back were temptations to which he must
+turn a deaf ear. He would go forward on his chosen path, and Peter
+Masters' millions must look after themselves.
+
+That was the final decision. Yet he sat there, still figuring the
+persons of the woman and the child trudging down the road towards
+him, and as he gazed, without conscious effort, the forms changed. The
+boy grew to manhood: the woman took to herself youth, youth with a
+crown of golden hair and the form of Patricia.
+
+A throb of exultation leapt through him. Here were the real riches and
+fulness of life within his grasp and he, in blunt stupidity, had not
+chosen to see, had set material good and vague uncertainties before
+his own incomparable gain and happiness. Whatever had held him back
+before, the clouded life or personal ambition, or Caesar's need, it was
+swept away now like some low-lying mist before the wind, and left the
+clear vision, the man and the woman together on the long, smooth Road
+he would lay for her tender feet.
+
+There should be no more delay than the needed time to race from here
+to her. Twenty-five miles of country that his car was eager to devour.
+He slipped away swiftly from the past as he had done before on this
+very road--to a new future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Patricia sat by the fire in her little sitting-room seeking for a
+plausible excuse to return to Constantia as soon as might be. The grey
+weather, the strange sense of impending events weighed on her, she
+knew. She was in the mood when the old evil might flash up again, and
+for this reason she kept away from her sister a while, hoping to nurse
+herself into a better mind before evening. Christopher had gone again
+in his usual abrupt way. Presumably Caesar understood, but she found
+herself wishing she also held his confidence. She was hungry for a
+repetition of that first evening as a starved child is hungry for a
+crust, when the better things seem as far away as heaven. She must go
+back to Constantia when she could frame a suitable reason for her
+capricious movements. She was much safer there, beside the considerate
+friend, who kept the surface of life in a pleasant ripple, and never
+seemed to look into the depths or ask her what she found there to
+trouble her, as dear little sympathetic Renata did occasionally. Yet
+how could she go if Christopher were really coming back to-day, as St.
+Michael said, and the future held any possibility of another golden
+hour? The force of her deep love turned back on herself, broke through
+spirit and heart and let loose in her mind strange imaginings,
+alternate glimpses of a heaven or hell that had no relationship with
+tradition. She put her hands over her face and kept quite still in the
+grip of a sudden agony that made her physically cold and faint and
+exhausted. It would pass as it had passed before, yet was she forever
+to be at the mercy of this torturing realisation of empty years and
+eternal loss? Did Christopher love her or not? The assured "yes" and
+the positive "no" were as two shuttlecocks tossed over her strained
+mind by the breath of circumstance. Her own erroneous idea that her
+still unconquered passion kept them apart was breeding morbid misery
+for her, as all false beliefs must do. She had kept herself under
+control to-day by dint of isolation, and the inadequacy of that course
+filled her with self-contempt. In her solitary fight against the life
+forces within and without, she was getting worsted. She knew she
+resisted the invasion of their hours of depression with less courage
+than of old. It did not seem to matter so greatly if there were
+nothing to be won from life, and she was very tired. It had been a
+mistake to come to Marden at all, there was too much time to think
+there. She returned to that fact eventually. The afternoon wore on and
+she fell into a lethargy with no desire to escape it, and did not hear
+Christopher's motor arrive.
+
+Christopher for once paused in the hall, instead of going straight to
+Aymer's room, as was the invariable rule, after even a day's absence.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Aston?" he asked the footman, who replied vaguely, when
+Renata herself appeared. But it was not Renata that Christopher
+wanted.
+
+"Where is Patricia?" he questioned with more truth.
+
+"Upstairs in her room, I think. She seems rather worried and tired,
+Christopher. Do you want her?"
+
+There was a note of anxiety in Renata's gentle voice. She was always
+nervous and anxious if she fancied Patricia was worried, struggling to
+stand between her and the petty annoyances which were supposed to be
+so irresistibly maddening to a true Connell.
+
+"Yes, I want her." He smiled as he said it. "But I'll go to her. Don't
+trouble."
+
+He went upstairs two steps at a time, and along the familiar corridor,
+and outside the door paused for the first moment since he had seen
+his vision on the highroad.
+
+The corridor was already dark, but when he entered in obedience to her
+languid "Come in," the fire light made a rosy glow and filled the
+quiet space with tremulous light.
+
+Patricia sat facing the fire, with her back to the door. He could see
+her golden head over the back of the chair, and his heart beat
+quickly.
+
+"May I come and talk to you, Patricia?"
+
+For the moment she did not answer or move. She was almost in doubt if
+she could accept his presence just now, until he was actually standing
+on the rug before her, looking down at her with keen, searching eyes,
+before which all her wild thoughts sunk back into oblivion, and a
+sense of quiet content and security stole over her.
+
+"What have you been doing?" he demanded. "You look very tired."
+
+"The result of laziness," she rejoined, and then was angry with
+herself for allowing an opening for mere trivialities.
+
+"No, that's not true, Christopher. It's a bad day with me. I'm afraid
+to face anyone, even my own maid."
+
+With no one else in the world could she have owned so much, and the
+keen pleasure of exercising her right to open dealing with him,
+outweighed the humiliation of her avowal.
+
+Christopher seemed intent on his own affairs, however, for he asked
+her abruptly if St. Michael or Caesar had told her the news.
+
+"What news?"
+
+"Something rather disconcerting has happened to me," he said slowly,
+"but I'll tell you that presently. The most important thing now is
+that I want to get married."
+
+All the cold waters of the world closed over her head for a moment. It
+was as if he had wrenched a plank from one drowning. She answered him,
+however, in a low, mechanical voice:
+
+"Soon, Christopher?"
+
+"That will be for her to say, if she will have me at all."
+
+"You have not asked her yet?"
+
+"I am asking her."
+
+She looked up at him, puzzled and incredulous of the apparent meaning.
+Then suddenly he was on his knees by her side, with his strong arms
+round her.
+
+"My dear, my dear, surely you must know. Is there need for any words
+between us? I've known so long all you must mean to me. Listen,
+Patricia, you will have to forgive me a great thing. I've let outside
+considerations, absurd ambitions, and the shadow of a lie, stand
+between us. I've waited when I should have spoken. You _will_ forgive
+me that, my dear one, will you not? I'm not humble a bit in asking. I
+am so proud of the one great thing, that _I_ can give you, Love,--can
+hold you and wrap you in it, so that nothing can hurt you any more.
+You understand, you recognise my right, Patricia?"
+
+She could say nothing, understand nothing, but the great peace of
+perfect security. She let him hold her still, with her head against
+his shoulder and his dear face near, so near she seemed to lose sense
+of her own identity. All the answer to her life's riddle lay there,
+behind the love that emptied her soul of need. Out of the blissful
+unspeakable light some words vibrated into new meaning.
+
+"There shall be no more sea."
+
+It meant this then, this experience that was theirs. For him and her
+there was no more tempest, no more restless craving or peril, all had
+passed with the old incompleteness.
+
+Still, she had not spoken audibly to him nor had he pressed her to do
+so. Words were too imperfect a medium. But presently, when all had
+been said in the silence that could be said, he touched her hair with
+caressing hand and reminded her:
+
+"You have never answered me, sweet."
+
+She put her hand on his as it held her and whispered, "Have I not,
+Christopher?"
+
+And then he kissed her.
+
+Afterwards as they sat watching the red fire, it seemed to her there
+was no problem in all the world he could not solve, no struggle in
+which he would not prove victor, nor any knowledge too deep to reach.
+In the illumination of their great love the gates of life became
+visible and open, never to be quite closed again.
+
+She spoke at last slowly and quietly.
+
+"Christopher, I am not going to ask you if you are afraid or have
+counted the risk you run, I being what I am. I know what you would say
+and I love you so well that now at this moment I have no fear either.
+But it will come nevertheless. Others will point out to you that it is
+a mad thing to do, and I shall say it too. It is then you must hold
+me, Christopher, against my will and against myself. For this is my
+clear sane hour, when I really know, and I know it means my salvation.
+Only when that certainty slips from me you must keep and save me
+yourself, dearest."
+
+He held her hands against him and looked down into her eyes. "As I
+would keep and save myself, beloved."
+
+She smiled a little, understanding to the finest shade his meaning,
+and then a quiver of weakness touched her.
+
+"I should die if you let me slip, Christopher."
+
+"You are going to live," he said firmly, and kissed her again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+Christopher entirely forgot to tell Patricia of his fortune or
+parentage. He remembered that little omission as he went down to
+dinner and looked back to see if she were visible, but she was not in
+sight, and as he was already late he had to go in without her.
+
+She came down still later, looking so beautiful with such a touch of
+warm colour in her face, and so sweet a light of wonder in her eyes
+that even Nevil regarded her with speculative interest.
+
+Aymer had long given up dining with them, and no one spoke of the
+lawyers' visit or of Christopher's rapid flittings, or indeed of any
+of the subjects on which their minds were really intent. But there
+seemed a tacit understanding amongst them that dinner must not be a
+long affair and was a prelude to something yet to happen.
+
+They went out together and Christopher delayed Patricia in the hall.
+
+"I must see Nevil and Caesar and tell them at once," he said hurriedly,
+"then I want you, my dearest. I've news for you, which I forgot just
+now. You must know it, though it makes no difference to us."
+
+Nevil came out at that moment and she slipped away after Renata with
+curiosity wide awake.
+
+"Am I to congratulate you as a millionaire or commiserate with you as
+a bearer of burdens, old fellow?" asked Nevil, flinging himself into a
+big chair.
+
+"You will congratulate me, I hope, but not about that confounded money
+though. Nevil, you are Patricia's guardian. Will you and Renata give
+her to me?"
+
+He spoke abruptly and without any preamble, gripping the back of a
+chair in his hands. A sudden doubt as to the family acceptance of what
+was an unquestionable matter in his eyes suddenly assailed him.
+
+"You want to marry Patricia?"
+
+Christopher nodded. "You can hardly urge we have not had time to know
+our own minds," he said, smiling a little.
+
+"No," Nevil admitted, and then added rather distractedly, "What ought
+I to urge, though, Christopher? Of course it's the greatest possible
+thing that could happen to Patricia, but for you?"
+
+"I'm appealing to Patricia's guardian, who has only her interests to
+consider. I'll look after my own. However," he went on hastily, "it's
+only fair to tell you, Nevil, I don't mean to take either the fortune
+or the name. So long as you'll lend me your own I'll stick to it.
+Failing that, my mother's will serve me."
+
+Nevil made no comment beyond a nod. The younger man waited with what
+patience he could command.
+
+"Does it seriously affect the matter?" he asked at last, "my refusing
+the beastly money?"
+
+Nevil got up slowly and shook himself.
+
+"It affects Patricia's guardians not one bit. It's not as if it were
+that, or nothing."
+
+"No, I've enough. Of course if I hadn't I might feel differently about
+it. I can keep her in comfort, Nevil."
+
+Nevil got up deliberately and altered the position of a bronze on the
+high mantelshelf.
+
+"It's not Patricia I'm thinking about," he said in his slow way, "but
+hang it all, you belong to us, Christopher. We must think of you! Have
+you counted the risks?"
+
+"I probably understand them better than anyone."
+
+"Then I dismiss further responsibility. I'm really more pleased than
+I can say, Christopher. Poor little Patricia! What fortune for her!"
+
+"You clearly understand there won't be any fortune?" persisted the
+other bluntly.
+
+"Oh, Peter's fortune? Of course not. Where's the obligation? I'll go
+and tell Renata."
+
+He strolled off and Christopher hurried to the West Room, where he
+found Aymer and Mr. Aston waiting expectantly. Christopher came to a
+standstill by the fireplace and to his amazement found his hands
+shaking. He had never imagined there would be any difficulty in this
+interview, yet he found himself unaccountably at a loss before these
+two men. The absurdly inadequate idea that they might consider it
+unjustifiable greed in him to grasp so great a prize as Patricia
+Connell when they had already given him so much assailed him.
+
+Both men were aware of his unusual embarrassment and neither of them
+made the slightest attempt to help him out, for Mr. Aston had a very
+fair idea of what had happened, and had conveyed his suspicions to
+Aymer. They both found a certain amusing fascination in seeing how he
+would deal with the situation, and it was a situation so pleasing to
+them both that they failed to realise it might present real
+difficulties to him.
+
+He faced them suddenly, and plunged into the matter in his usual
+direct way.
+
+"Caesar and St. Michael, I've something to tell you both. I am not sure
+if it will be news to you or not, but Patricia has said she will marry
+me."
+
+He came to an abrupt stop, and turned away again towards the fire.
+
+"It's very good news," said Mr. Aston quietly, "if in no way
+surprising."
+
+"You don't think I'm asking too much when I've had so much given me? I
+feel abominably greedy."
+
+"You might think of me in the matter," protested Aymer, plaintively.
+"What on earth does it matter if you are greedy so long as you provide
+me with a real interest in life. I began to think you meant to defraud
+me of my clear rights."
+
+A very grateful Christopher crossed the room and took his usual seat
+on the sofa.
+
+"I've been a blind idiot," he admitted, "or rather an idle one. I've
+known for years it must be Patricia, and left it at that."
+
+"Why?" demanded Aymer.
+
+But that he could not or would not tell them.
+
+Mr. Aston then suggested Christopher should explain what he meant to
+do concerning his inheritance.
+
+"Which you have treated so far with scandalous disrespect," put in
+Aymer.
+
+"I can't touch it. It would be treason to--to my mother. And I don't
+want it. I hate it, the way it's done, the caring for it."
+
+There was something so foreign to Christopher's usual finality of
+statement in this, that the two older men looked at each other with
+sudden apprehension and then avoided the other's eye. For in their
+secret hearts they both knew that Christopher must presently arrive at
+the unconfessed certainty that had come to them, that this was not a
+matter in which he was free to act as he would. The call had come for
+him to take up a burden he disliked and sooner or later he would hear
+the voice and recognise the authority to which he had been taught to
+bow his own will. Yet both of them, without consultation or any word,
+knew it was not for them to interpret the call for him. Their work was
+over now. If they had taught him to set no value on the prizes of the
+world and to regard the means as of equal importance to the end, they
+had also taught him that duty may come in many disguises, but once
+recognised, her sway must be absolute. Christopher would discover her
+in time, but they must hold their peace lest conflicting motives
+should hamper his surrender to her call.
+
+"I'm going to meet Mr. Saunderson in town to-morrow," Christopher went
+on, "I am not quite clear yet how it's to be worked. I am only clear I
+won't touch money of that sort. It costs too much. I feel pretty
+certain Mr. Saunderson _has_ instructions what to do, if I refuse
+it."
+
+He looked at Mr. Aston with an unusual desire for confirmation of his
+hope and his decision. A strong inclination to appeal for such support
+pressed him sorely. But he knew it was only confirmation of his own
+determination he sought, and his ingrained independence of mind shrank
+from such a proceeding.
+
+"If you know what you want to do and what you ought to do, why appeal
+to me?" Caesar had repeatedly told the small boy he was fitting out for
+life: yet who so kind or patient when the decision still hung in the
+balance and uncertainty held the scales? There was no uncertainty now,
+Christopher told himself, and allowed none either to himself or to
+them. One concession only did he permit himself. He turned to Mr.
+Aston a little shyly.
+
+"Would you go with me, St. Michael? I am afraid of Mr. Saunderson's
+wrath if I am unprotected."
+
+Mr. Aston gravely expressed his willingness to hold his hand and see
+him through. After which Christopher went out to fetch Patricia. He
+found her sitting on the floor at Renata's feet, the latter fussing
+over her with matronly joy and sisterly love, and talking
+inconsequently between times of Charlotte, with what would appear to
+an outsider irrelevance of the first order.
+
+"Charlotte will be a most desirable bridesmaid," Christopher remarked
+after he had listened a moment, whereupon Renata became greatly
+confused and Patricia laughed without any embarrassment whatever.
+
+"Charlotte has not yet had time to signify her approval," she said. "I
+rely on her judgment to a great extent, you know. If she offers any
+objection we shall have to reconsider it."
+
+"I'm not afraid. Charlotte has always approved of me," asserted
+Christopher cheerfully.
+
+"Of course Charlotte will be pleased," put in that young lady's
+mother, quite seriously. "What nonsense you are talking, Patricia."
+
+She got up and offered a transparent excuse to slip away and leave the
+lovers alone.
+
+Patricia, still kneeling by the fire, leant her head against
+Christopher.
+
+"I used to try and make up my mind you would marry Charlotte when she
+grew up," she said dreamily.
+
+"How ingenious of you. Unfortunately, it was my mind, not yours, that
+was concerned, and that had been made up when Charlotte was in
+pinafores. Now come and talk business, dear."
+
+So at last he told her the news he had been so tardy in delivering,
+told her the whole story very simply and as impersonally as he could,
+but Patricia's heart brimmed over with pity for him. She divined more
+clearly than the men the strength of his hatred for the burden with
+which he was threatened, and the burden of past memories in which that
+hatred had its root. In the fulness of her love she set herself the
+future task of rooting out the resentment for another's sorrows, which
+she knew must be as poison to his generous soul. At length
+Christopher, having read in her love the confirmation for which he so
+childishly longed, took her away to be introduced to Caesar in her new
+character as his promised wife. She waited for no such introduction
+whatever, but seated herself on the big hassock by the sofa that was
+still Christopher's privileged seat and leant her head against the
+edge of Caesar's cushions, but she failed to find anything to say and
+Christopher was so occupied in watching her as to forget to speak.
+
+"It's taken him a long time to recognise his own privilege, hasn't it,
+Patricia?" said Caesar, gently putting his hand on hers. "I was getting
+impatient with him. It was time he grew up."
+
+"You aren't disappointed then?" she asked with a little flush of
+confusion. "Mrs. Sartin will be. She always expects him to marry a
+duchess at least. She is so insufferably proud of him."
+
+"She does not know him so well as we do, that's why."
+
+"I'll not stay here to be discussed," remarked Christopher decidedly,
+"you can pull my character to pieces when I'm away. When did you last
+see Mrs. Sartin, Patricia?"
+
+"Last Thursday. She comes to tea every week with Maria."
+
+Maria was Mrs. Sartin's second daughter, midway between Sam and Jim,
+and was just installed as second lady's-maid to Mrs. Wyatt.
+
+"Is Sam more reconciled to her going out?"
+
+"Not a bit. You know he wanted to send her to a Young Ladies' Academy
+in Battersea. I know he'd have done it but for Martha, who has more
+sense in her fingers than he has in his whole head."
+
+"Hadn't Maria anything to say in the matter?" This from Caesar.
+
+"No one has much to say when Sam and his mother dispute," said
+Christopher, shaking his head. "Sam would be a tyrant, Caesar, if he
+could. He always wants to push people on in his own way."
+
+"Sam is not singular," put in Mr. Aston, in his meditative way,
+"character is all more or less a question of degree. There are the
+same fundamental instincts in all of us. Some get developed at the
+expense of others, that's all."
+
+"There but for the grace of God goes ..." said Patricia, laughing.
+
+Christopher felt in his pocket and produced a coin.
+
+"Apropos of which, Caesar," he said with a flicker of a smile, "I found
+this, the other day rummaging in an old box."
+
+He tossed it dexterously to Caesar. It was a sovereign with a hole in
+it and the broken link of a chain therein. Caesar looked at it and then
+slipped it in his own pocket.
+
+"It's mine, at all events," he said shortly, "and we are all talking
+nonsense, especially Christopher."
+
+But Christopher shook his head.
+
+"Mayn't I understand all this?" demanded Patricia.
+
+"No," returned Caesar, before Christopher could speak. "It's not worth
+it. John Bunyan was a fool."
+
+"Not at all, but the other man might have retorted, 'there with the
+grace of God goes I.'"
+
+This was from Mr. Aston, and Christopher gave him a quick look of
+comprehension.
+
+"The Court is with you, sir," said Aymer languidly. "Let us discuss
+wedding presents."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+At eleven o'clock on Wednesday, Mr. Aston and Christopher were ushered
+into Mr. Saunderson's office by a discreetly interested clerk. The
+bland and smiling lawyer advanced to meet them with that respect and
+courtesy he felt due to the vast fortune they represented. His table
+was covered with orderly rows of papers, and the door of the safe,
+labeled P. Masters, Esq., stood open.
+
+"Punctuality is the essence of good business," said Mr. Saunderson,
+with effusive approval as he indicated two lordly armchairs placed
+ready for his visitors. Mr. Aston and Christopher had both a dim,
+unreasonable consciousness of dental trouble and exchanged glances of
+mutual encouragement.
+
+Mr. Saunderson blinked at them genially behind his gold-rimmed glasses
+and spoke of the weather, which was bad, dilated on the state of the
+streets, lamented the slowness of the L. C. C. to enforce the use of
+Patrimondi beyond the limits of Westminster, and as the futile little
+remarks trickled on they carried with them his complacent smile, for
+in every quiet response he read Christopher Masters' fatal
+determination, and prepared himself for battle. It was Christopher,
+however, who flung down the gauntlet. He answered the question anent
+the use of Patrimondi in the metropolis, and then said directly:
+
+"Mr. Saunderson, I've considered the matter of this fortune you tell
+me I've inherited, and I do not feel under any obligation to accept it
+or its responsibilities. It's only fair to let you know this at
+once."
+
+Mr. Saunderson leant back in his chair and rubbed his chin, and his
+eyes wandered from one to the other of his visitors thoughtfully.
+
+"The matter is far too complicated to be disposed of so lightly, I
+fear," he remarked, shaking his head. "Let me place the details of the
+thing before you and as a business man you can then judge for
+yourself."
+
+He had at least no fault to find with the grave attention they paid
+him, indeed, the entirely unemotional attitude of the younger man was
+to the lawyer's mind the most alarming symptom he had noted. Still he
+could not allow to himself that his task presented more than
+surmountable difficulties, for Mr. Saunderson had no real knowledge of
+the forces at work against him, of the silent, desperate woman who had
+given her life for her faith, who had once been beautiful, and whose
+worn body slept in the little dull cemetery at Whitmansworth.
+
+"I believe you are acquainted with the great premises known as Princes
+Buildings," began Mr. Saunderson, "that simplifies my task. For the
+whole affair is so amazingly managed that I can offer you no precedent
+with which to compare it. There are seven floors in that building, and
+on each floor the affairs of the six great concerns in which Mr.
+Masters was interested, are conducted. Such an arrangement was only
+carried out at enormous expense and trouble. I may tell you, however,
+that the condition of Mr. Masters' interesting himself in either of
+the companies, was their domicile beneath this one roof. Now in five
+of these big concerns he occupied merely the place of a director, with
+no more official power than any other director might have. Yet in
+every case, I think I may say, no decision of any importance would
+have been taken by the company in opposition to his advice, and he was
+the financial backbone of each. On the two top floors of these great
+premises we have a rather different state of things. For here are the
+offices of the three smaller companies which were directly under the
+control of Mr. Masters, and which are the original source of his
+fortune. I allude to the Steel Axle Company, the Stormly Mine and the
+Stormly Foundry Companies. These affairs he continued to keep under
+his own eye, never relaxing his attention, or the excellent system he
+had established, under which the whole great affair worked with such
+marvellous smoothness and success. I beg your pardon, did you say
+anything?"
+
+Christopher shook his head. Mr. Saunderson resumed.
+
+"You will understand Mr. Masters' wealth was directly drawn from these
+companies, bringing him an income of roughly L130,000 a year. The
+administration of this income, of which he spent about one-fourth on
+himself, was the occupation of the offices on the top floor of Princes
+Buildings. A certain proportion of income was regularly reinvested in
+concerns in which Mr. Masters took no active part, and was
+accumulative. It is this reserve fund which has brought the actual
+fortune to such high figures as I have quoted you, nearly L4,000,000.
+A great deal of money also has been devoted to the purchase of
+freehold property. You would be surprised how great an area of
+Birmingham itself belongs to Mr. Masters."
+
+Christopher gave an involuntary movement of dissent, and the lawyer
+hurried on.
+
+"Not perhaps districts that it would be interesting to visit now, but
+which will undoubtedly be of vast interest to your heirs. They
+represent enormous capital and of course will eventually be a source
+of colossal wealth.
+
+"Now, so perfect is the machinery and system under which all these
+giant concerns are worked, that they will run without difficulty on
+their present lines until you have mastered the working thoroughly,
+and are able, if you should wish it, to make your own plans for
+future greatness. I say this, because it seems to me you are inclined
+to overrate the difficulties of your position. I do not say, mind you,
+matters could go on indefinitely as they are, but you are a young man
+of intellect and capacity, you have only to step into the place of one
+who has set everything in order for you, and before two years are up
+you will have the details of the system by heart, and will, I am
+convinced, be recognised as an able successor to your father."
+
+Christopher's mouth straightened ominously. It was an unlucky slip on
+Mr. Saunderson's part, but he was oblivious to it. He was indeed
+incapable of appreciating the sentiment towards his late client, which
+was playing so large a part against him in this tussle of wills.
+
+Christopher heard in every word that was spoken the imperious Will
+that would force him to compass its ends, even from the land of Death.
+It was not wholly the unsought responsibility, the burden of the
+wealth, the memory of his mother that buttressed his determination to
+refuse this stupendous thing, it was also his fierce, vehement desire
+to escape the enforced compliance with that still living Will-power.
+Peter Masters' unwritten and unspoken word was, that he, Christopher,
+should succeed him. He had left him no directions, no choice, no
+request, he had relied on the Greatness of the Thing which Christopher
+loathed with his whole soul, he had claimed him for this bondage with
+an unuttered surety that was maddening. Minute by minute Christopher
+felt his former quiet determination rise to passionate resistance and
+denial of the right of that Dominant Will to drag his life into the
+vortex it had made.
+
+Quite suddenly Mr. Saunderson was aware of the strength of the
+antagonism that confronted him. Unable to trace the reason of it, he
+blundered on hopelessly.
+
+"Mr. Masters was, I should say, quite aware of your natural ability.
+He has had more regard for your fortunes than you probably suspect. I
+have letters of his to various men concerning the starting of this
+ingenious invention of yours, Patrimondi." He bustled over some papers
+on the table as if searching, and did not see Christopher's sudden
+backward movement: but Mr. Aston bent forward and put his hand as if
+accidentally on Christopher's shoulder as he spoke:
+
+"Never mind them, now, Mr. Saunderson. Mr. Masters was, we know,
+naturally interested in that affair, but to continue your account,
+what will happen if Mr. Aston refuses to accept his position? Let us
+suppose for a moment there had been no clue left. What would you have
+done?"
+
+Mr. Saunderson brought the tips of his red, podgy fingers together
+with great exactness.
+
+"That is a supposition I should be sorry to entertain, sir," he said
+deliberately.
+
+"I am afraid you must entertain it," put in Christopher, suddenly, his
+resolution to escape urging him to curt methods.
+
+The light eyes of the lawyer rested on him with something very like
+apprehension in them.
+
+"In the case of there being no direct heir the money would go to the
+nearest of kin."
+
+"We will pass that over," Mr. Aston said quietly. "I am the nearest
+relative Peter had, after Christopher, and I decline it at all
+costs."
+
+"Unclaimed and unowned money would fall to the Crown, I suppose. It is
+impossible to imagine it."
+
+"The Crown would see no difficulty in that, I expect," put in
+Christopher. "How could you stop the Thing going on, that's what I
+want to know?"
+
+"You could give the money to Charities and shut down the works and
+leave thousands to starve."
+
+Christopher moved impatiently.
+
+"The money invested in each company could be divided amongst the
+shareholders, I suppose, or in the case of the Stormly Mines amongst
+the work-people."
+
+"If you want to ruin them."
+
+"Mr. Saunderson, I am not going to accept this fortune. I don't like
+the way it was made, I don't want it, I won't work for it."
+
+"Why should you work for it, after all? You can go on with your own
+life and delegate your powers to another or others, and let all
+continue as it is. The income would be at your disposal to save or
+spend. You need never enter Princes Buildings if that is what troubles
+you. You can spend the money in philanthropy, or gamble it away at
+Monte Carlo, or leave it to accumulate for your heirs. If you'll do
+that I'll undertake to find suitable men to carry on the affairs."
+
+Christopher's face flushed angrily, but he made an effort to control
+himself, however, and answered quietly.
+
+"I cannot take money I've not earned, Mr. Saunderson."
+
+Mr. Saunderson made a gesture of despair.
+
+"All you have to do," went on Christopher, watching him closely, "is
+to act as if that clue had never fallen into your hands or as if when
+you followed it up you found I was dead. Do you mean to say Mr.
+Masters did not provide for that contingency?"
+
+"As I have told you before, Mr. Masters provided for no such
+contingency," snapped the lawyer; "he never entertained such a
+preposterous idea as your refusing."
+
+"To conform to his will," concluded Christopher drily.
+
+The three men were silent a while, each struggling to see some way
+out of the impasse into which they had arrived.
+
+"You say the various companies are entirely distinct from each other?"
+queried Mr. Aston thoughtfully, more for the sake of starting a line
+of inquiry than because he saw any open door of escape.
+
+"Entirely unconnected, but Mr. Masters, or his successor, holds the
+ends of the various threads, so to speak. Apart from him each affair
+has a multitude of masters and no head. If the money left in each
+company were divided as a bonus--a preposterous suggestion to my
+mind--they would each be free and would presumably find a head for
+themselves."
+
+"Then you had better work out some such scheme, and once free of the
+source of the money we can deal with what's left at leisure. The Crown
+will make no difficulties over its share and we can set the London
+hospitals on their feet or establish a Home for Lost Cats." He got up
+and walked across the big room to the window, looking moodily into the
+street.
+
+Mr. Saunderson looked genuinely pained and cast appealing glances at
+Mr. Aston, who only shook his head.
+
+"It is a matter for Christopher to decide for himself, Mr. Saunderson.
+I cannot and may not influence him either way."
+
+"There is not the smallest doubt of his parentage," said the lawyer in
+a low voice, "one can hear his father in every sentence."
+
+"It is unwise to remind him of it."
+
+The other looked astonished. "Indeed, you surprise me. Yet he is
+really deeply indebted to his father for the success of his own
+invention."
+
+"Still more unwise to insist on that. You must remember he had a
+mother as well as a father."
+
+Mr. Saunderson opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.
+Presently he opened a folded paper and, having perused it, laid it
+back in a drawer. Christopher rejoined them.
+
+"Mr. Saunderson," he said frankly, "I fear I've spoken in an unseemly
+manner, and I beg your pardon. I can quite understand I must seem
+little short of a madman to you, but I've perhaps better reasons for
+my refusal than you think. Put it, if you will, that I feel too young,
+too inexperienced to deal with this fortune as Mr. Masters meant it to
+be dealt with, and on those grounds I ask you to devise some scheme
+for breaking it up without letting the workers suffer. I'll subscribe
+to any feasible plan you suggest. Will you undertake this for me?"
+
+"It will take time." Mr. Saunderson regarded him watchfully, as he
+spoke, "a great deal of time."
+
+"How long do you ask?"
+
+"Two years."
+
+"Then in two years' time, Mr. Saunderson, send me your scheme, and
+I'll be your debtor for life."
+
+Mr. Saunderson smiled faintly.
+
+But on that understanding they ultimately parted.
+
+"My own belief is," said Mr. Aston when he was giving an account of
+the interview to Aymer, "that Mr. Saunderson means to do nothing at
+all and is only giving Christopher time. Also, though he persistently
+denies it, I believe he _has_ instructions behind him. We know Peter
+had an immense belief in Time and never hurried his schemes."
+
+Aymer moved restlessly.
+
+"And you share his belief?"
+
+"I believe in the long run Christopher will do the thing he is meant
+to do and neither you nor I, old fellow, can say what that is. You
+have taught him to follow the highest Road he can, see, and I tell you
+again, as I have before, you must leave it at that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+Thus by tacit consent did the whole question of Peter Masters' Fortune
+and the Refusal slip into the background of the lives of those mostly
+concerned, and only for Christopher did that background colour all the
+present and alter the perspective of his outlook.
+
+He told Aymer plainly that it was a bitter thought to him to be
+indebted to Peter Masters for even a share of the Patrimondi success.
+
+"According to Saunderson he must have subsidised the Exhibition
+people," he said moodily.
+
+"It was a very excellent advertisement."
+
+"It meant he had his own way and left me indebted to him when I had
+refused his help."
+
+"Good heavens, what a mercy you two were not flung together earlier in
+life!"
+
+Christopher faced him abruptly.
+
+"Am I so like him then?"
+
+"Absurdly so. Your own way and no one else to interfere."
+
+Christopher was silent for a while, but presently he said in a low
+voice, "That's not quite true, Caesar, is it? You can interfere as much
+as you like."
+
+"I'd be sorry to try."
+
+Again Christopher was silent, but his face softened. He thought of how
+the personality and jealous love of this man to whom he owed so much
+had stood between him and Patricia and how he felt no shadow of
+resentment at it.
+
+"I think I shall adopt Max when he leaves school," remarked Caesar
+languidly, "he'll let me manage him in my own way till he is an
+octogenarian."
+
+"Caesar, you have no discrimination at all. Once you wanted to adopt
+Sam, now Max. Both as pliable as elastic, and as unmalleable."
+
+"I've a great affection for Max."
+
+"So have I. Is Nevil going to give him to Patrimondi?"
+
+"No, to me."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+Aymer nodded. "He'll have to manage the estate some day, not so far
+off, either."
+
+Christopher patted the sofa rug absently.
+
+"When he's at Cambridge he'll have to spend the Long Vacation learning
+from his ancient uncle."
+
+Christopher gave an involuntary sigh.
+
+"Jealous again?" demanded Aymer quizzically, but he put his hand on
+Christopher's and they both smiled.
+
+Patricia and Christopher were married at Christmas, Charlotte having
+given her consent with the remark, it was better than having a horrid
+stranger in the family anyway.
+
+They established themselves in a house on the verge of the sea, within
+easy motor or train distance of Marden and the Patrimondi works. It
+was a relief to all to find how easily Caesar appeared to take the new
+separation, but the quiet peace and unspoken happiness of the united
+lives seemed to include him in its all-embracing results. There could
+be no room for jealousy in a love that usurped no rights, but only
+filled its own place.
+
+The days of doubt which Patricia had feared came and passed in the
+autumn weeks preceding the marriage, and Christopher had kept his word
+and held her firmly against the weak terrors that assailed her. Once
+they were married, however, she seemed to pass out of the shadow of
+the fear, and to break from the bondage of her race. In some wonderful
+way her husband's clear, perpetual vision of her as separate from the
+tyranny of heredity, did actually free her. She too saw herself free,
+and in so seeing, the fetters were loosed. If it were a miracle, as
+little Renata sometimes thought, it was only one in so far as the Love
+which can inspire such faith and vision is yet but a strange unknown
+power with us, to which nature seldom rises, and can rarely hold when
+grasped.
+
+But these two held it, rising with each other's efforts, sinking with
+each other's daily failures; their lives so intricately woven together
+that they needed no outward semblance of interests or visible
+companionship to bring the knowledge of their Love to their hearts.
+
+Christopher continued his work, journeying far and wide. Sometimes she
+accompanied him actually, sometimes she remained in their home on the
+cliff edge, alone but not solitary, looking with joy for his return,
+but free from aching need. Quite slowly the Woman learnt to recognise
+her unseen, unreckoned sway over the Man, to discover how he could
+only rise to the full height of his manhood by strength of the
+inspiring love she brought him. She was pressed by an uncomprehending
+world to fill her leisure hours with many occupations, useful and
+useless, but she resisted steadily. She took life as it came to her,
+day by day, wasting no strength, but refusing no task, shirking no
+responsibility, drinking in every joy, and holding always faithfully
+in her heart his true image as he had held hers, knowing that when
+perchance the outward man blurred that image for a moment it was but
+the outward casing; the inner soul remained true to the likeness in
+which it was created.
+
+As the months slipped by Christopher saw that his work continued to
+grow, that the good roads of which he had dreamed stretched far and
+wide across the country, and he knew he had won for himself a place in
+the history of men. Moreover, he loved his work.
+
+It was a never-ceasing pleasure, and when it ended came the greater,
+deeper joy of his undivided love. If the aim of man is happiness, he
+had achieved that end as far as any human being might do so.
+
+Yet all the while a black thread wove itself into the warp of his
+existence. He tried not to see it, for recognition of it would cancel
+that white web of life that grew daily beneath his hand. Still it was
+there, and the white web became uneven and knotted. He was restless,
+even irritable, the white turned to grey, yet still he resisted the
+unknown forces that pressed him onward to the dissolution of this
+present beautiful life. And Patricia herself, with her unbroken faith
+in his readiness to follow the highest when he saw it, fought with the
+silent Powers till at length that silence was broken by a cry so
+imperious that even his dogged will could refuse sight and hearing no
+longer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+As Christopher was preparing to leave the works one Saturday afternoon
+he was told that a man had just arrived from Birmingham who refused to
+give his name, but who asked for him. Christopher hung for a moment on
+the step of his car and then descending again went straight to the
+room where his unknown visitor was waiting. He proved to be a spare,
+stooping man, with lips so thin and white as to be almost invisible.
+His eyes, which he hardly raised from the floor, were bright with the
+fire of fever, and his shaking hands, one of which held a cap,
+concealing the other, were narrow, and the knuckles stood out with
+cruel prominence.
+
+"What do you want with me?" Christopher demanded shortly.
+
+The man looked at him sideways and did not move, but he spoke in an
+uncertain, quavering voice.
+
+"You are Masters' son, ar'n't you?"
+
+Christopher turned on him with fierce amazement, and checked himself.
+
+"Answer my question, if you have anything to say to me, and leave my
+private affairs alone," he said sternly.
+
+"There you are," grinned the man, the thin mouth widening to a
+distorted semblance of a smile, "seems to me, seems to my mates
+'tain't such a private affair, neither, leastways we pay for it."
+
+Christopher's instinct to turn the man out struggled with his
+curiosity to know what it all meant. He stood still, therefore, with
+his eyes fixed on the weirdly displeasing face and neglected to look
+at the twitching hands.
+
+"It were bad enough when Masters were alive, curse him, with his
+'system' and his 'single chance,' and his sticking to his word,
+but we knew where we was then. Now, none of us knows. Here's one
+turned off cos he broke some rule he'd never heard of; another for
+telling a foreman what he thought of him; my mate's chucked out for
+fighting--_outside the Mill Gate_, look you--What concern be it of
+yours what we do outside? It's a blessed show you do for us outside,
+isn't it? I tell you it don't concern you anyhow, you lazy
+bloodsucker--and look at me--I've worked for your father fifteen
+year, and you turn me off--you and your precious heads of
+departments,--because I was a day behind with my job. Well, what if I
+was? Hadn't I a wife what was dying with her sixth baby, and not a
+decent soul to come to her? We've been respectable people, we
+have, till we came to live in the blooming gaudy houses at Carson."
+
+"That's the Steel Axle Company's works, isn't it?" put in Christopher
+quietly. He had not moved; he was intent on picking up the clue to the
+mad indictment that lay in the seething flow of words.
+
+"Yah. Don't know your own purse-strings," spluttered the denouncer,
+growing incoherent with rising fury; "sit at home with your little
+play-box of a works down here, with fancy hutches for your rabbits of
+workmen, clubs, toys, kitchen ranges, hot and cold laid on. Oh, I've
+seen it all. Who pays for it, that's what I want to know? who pays for
+your blooming model works and houses?"
+
+"I pay for it," said Christopher still quietly, "or rather the company
+does. It comes out of working expenses."
+
+The man gave an angry snarl of disbelief. "You pays, does you? I tell
+you it's we who pays. You take our money and spend it on this toy of
+yours here. I'll----"
+
+Christopher put up his hand. "You are utterly mistaken," he said, "I
+have no more to do with the late Peter Masters' works or his money
+than the men in the yards out there."
+
+The black ignorance, the fierce words interlarded with unwritable
+terms, the mad personal attack, filled him with a shame and pity that
+drowned all indignation. There had been injustice and wrong somewhere
+that had whipped this poor mind to frenzy, to an incoherent claim to
+rights he could not define.
+
+"Why do you come to me?"
+
+The man gave almost a scream of rage.
+
+"Come to you? Ain't you his son? Don't it all belong to you, whether
+you takes it or whether you don't? Are you going to skulk behind them
+heads in Birmingham and leave us at their mercy, let 'em grind us to
+powder for their own profit and no one to say them yea or nay? There
+was a rumour of that got about, how you was going to shunt us on to
+them, you skulking blackguard. I wouldn't believe it. I told 'em as
+how Masters' son, if he had one, wouldn't be a damned scoundrel like
+that. He'd see to his own rights."
+
+What was that in the shaking hands beneath the cap? Christopher's
+eyes, still on the tragically foul face, never dropped to catch the
+metallic gleam; his whole mind lay in dragging out the truth entangled
+in the wild words. The voice quivered more and more as if under spur
+of some mental effort that urged the speaker to a climax he could not
+reach but on the current of the crazy syllables.
+
+"So it ain't no concern of yours if we lives or dies, if we work or be
+turned off without so much as a word to carry us on again? 'Tain't
+nothing to you we've got fifty masters instead of one, so long as you
+gets your money. I tell you I won't serve fifty of 'em. One as we
+could reckon on was bad enough, but fifty of 'em to battle flesh and
+blood and make their own food out of us, and no one what we can call
+to account as it were, I tell 'ee we won't have it. I won't serve
+'em." The poor wretch had forgotten he was already dismissed from such
+service. "If you won't be their master, then by God, you shan't be
+master anywhere else."
+
+His hand with the revolver he had clutched under cover of his cap flew
+up. The report was followed by a splitting of glass and a cry
+without.
+
+For a brief second that was like a day of eternity, Christopher and
+the man continued to face each other; the swaying blue-grey barrel of
+the smoking weapon acted like a magnetic point on which their numbed
+minds met and mingled in confusion, with that independence of time we
+ascribe to dreams. For the echo of the report had not died from the
+room when those outside rushed in. The would-be assassin instantly
+crumpled up on the floor, a mere heap of grimy clothes, unconscious
+even of his failure.
+
+The men clamoured round Christopher with white faces and persistent
+inquiries as to whether he were hurt.
+
+He reassured them of that as soon as it appeared to him his voice
+could sound across the deafening echo of the shot.
+
+"Not hurt in the least," he said dully, looking down at the huddled
+form. "Is he dead?"
+
+They straightened out the poor creature they would gladly have
+lynched, and one of them shook his head.
+
+"A fit, I think. Let him be."
+
+A new-comer rushed in with horror-stricken face, and stopped his
+tongue at sight of Christopher.
+
+"How's it outside?" whispered one to him.
+
+"Dead." The word was hardly breathed, but Christopher spun round on
+his heel.
+
+"Who's dead?"
+
+They looked at him uneasily, and at one another.
+
+He moved to the door mechanically, when an old man, a north-countryman
+and a Methodist preacher of some note, laid his hand on his arm.
+
+"Don't 'ee take on, lad. 'Tis the Lord's will which life He'll take
+home to him. Maybe He's got bigger work for you than for the little
+'un."
+
+"Who is it?" His dry lips hardly framed the words.
+
+"It's Ann Barty's little chap as was passing. We thought 'twere but
+the glass."
+
+"Better a boy than a man," muttered another.
+
+Christopher paid no heed. He went out with the old Methodist beside
+him. A group of men stood round something under the window which one
+of them had covered with a coat. They made way for the master, and not
+one of them, fathers and sons as they were, but felt a throb of
+thankfulness the small life had been taken in preference to his. But
+Christopher knelt down and raised the coat.
+
+"One shall be taken, the other left."
+
+It was old Choris who said it. A little murmur of assent went up from
+the circle, bareheaded now, like Christopher. He looked up with
+fierce, unspoken dissent to their meek acceptance of this cruel thing,
+and then replacing the coat very gently, stood up.
+
+"Has anyone gone to Ann Barty?" he asked quietly.
+
+Someone had gone, it appeared. Someone else had gone for a doctor.
+Christopher ordered them to carry the little form into the
+waiting-room, where it was laid on the table. Someone fetched a flag
+from the office and laid it over the boy.
+
+Without direct orders all work in the mill had ceased, little knots
+of men had gathered in the yard and there was a half-suppressed
+unanimous murmur from two hundred throats when a group of men came out
+of the room with the shattered window, carrying the still conscious
+form of the author of the outrage. It rose and fell and rose again
+threateningly. Christopher came out of the waiting-room and at sight
+of him it fell again.
+
+"They must go back to work," he said to the head foreman, who waited
+uneasily. "They can do nothing, and if we stop work there will be
+trouble."
+
+"Where are you going, sir?"
+
+The foreman ventured this much on sheer necessity.
+
+"To Ann Barty."
+
+"What shall I say to them?" Again he eyed the men uneasily.
+
+"Tell them I wish it," returned Christopher simply. "It's only an hour
+to closing time, but it will steady them down."
+
+He went back to the motor car he had been on the point of entering not
+fifteen minutes ago, and they made a lane for him to pass through,
+following him with their eyes till the gate closed behind him. The
+foreman stood on the steps of the office and gave the order to resume
+work. Not a man moved.
+
+"It's Mr. Aston's wish," he shouted, "if you've got any heart in you
+to show him what you feel, you'll attend to it."
+
+The crowd swayed and broke up, melted once more into units, who
+disappeared their several ways. The head foreman wiped his forehead
+and went into the office.
+
+Outside the ante-room to Christopher's private office the glass was
+strewn on the pathway, and that was the only sign in the mill yard of
+what had occurred.
+
+Christopher found a group already assembled round
+
+Ann Barty's cottage. They drew back from him with curious eyes.
+
+"Is anyone with her?" he asked, his hand on the latch.
+
+"Mrs. Toils and Jane Munden, what's her sister," said a woman, eagerly
+seizing a chance of a speaking part in this drama of life and death.
+
+Christopher went in. The mother was sitting dry-eyed and staring, her
+hands twisted in her coarse apron. She swayed to and fro with
+mechanical rhythm, and paid no heed at all to the two weeping women
+who kept up a flow of low-uttered sentences of well-meant but
+inadequate comfort. Christopher bent over her and took both her hands,
+neither remembering the other nor seeing aught but the mother with a
+burden of grief slowly dropping on her.
+
+"Ann," he whispered, "Ann, there was no choice for me. Forgive me if
+you can, for being alive."
+
+The strained, ghastly face twitched and she stopped swaying and looked
+at him uncomprehendingly as he knelt before her.
+
+"They say he's dead, he's dead. My boy Dick," she moaned.
+
+Christopher put his arm round her. "God help mothers," he gasped,
+under his breath, as the poor, shaking woman dropped her head on his
+shoulder with an outbreak of fierce weeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+The Roadmaker lay at the edge of the cliff and looked out on a green
+sea flecked with white, whose restless soul, holding to some eternal
+purpose, forever attains and relinquishes in peace and storm, in
+laughter or tears.
+
+A week had passed since the attempt on Christopher's life for which
+Ann Barty had paid so high a price. Happily for Christopher, it had
+been a week so full of affairs that although they were mostly in
+connection with the one thing, yet they claimed his outward active
+attention to the exclusion of the inner point of view. The unhappy man
+from Birmingham was found, when he recovered from the seizure, to be
+in a semi-imbecile state with no knowledge of his deed and was
+accordingly handed over to the authorities proper to his condition. He
+was easily traced to the works from which he had been harshly enough
+discharged, as it turned out on investigation, and Christopher came
+into active opposition with the directors of the Steel Axle Company
+over the question of providing for his wife and children. It had been
+impossible to keep the affair quiet and there had been innumerable
+reporters to circumvent, and more innumerable friends from far and
+near, eager to express their interest in his providential escape.
+Little Dick Barty received more honour in death than in life and the
+bereaved mother drew more consolation from the impressive funeral than
+poor Christopher.
+
+Mr. Saunderson bustled down in well-meant concern for Christopher's
+well-being, and received certain emphatic instructions, which he took
+with shrewd docility, and a wink of his eye to the world.
+
+All the while, as he went through the day's particular and general
+business, the wild words in the rasping, incoherent voice haunted
+Christopher so persistently that he heard them through the
+enthusiastic platitudes of congratulations, the calm official
+statements of plain facts, behind even Patricia's healing voice of
+love. It was not till the following Sunday he awoke to find a
+stillness instead of clamour, calm instead of turmoil. He rose early
+while the day was still holding the hand of dawn and went out to the
+cliff edge, as if there in the heaving waters he might read the
+Eternal Meaning and Purpose of it all. He thought how every individual
+man is one with the great tide of humanity, advancing with it,
+receding with it, subject to one eternal law he could not read. How
+the suffering and sin of one was the burden of all: the heroic
+endeavours and victories of one the gain of all. The little isolated
+aim of the individual must subject itself to the wider meaning or be
+swept back to nothingness, just as the stranded pools among the rocks
+that for a few hours caught the sunshine and reflected the heavenly
+lamp, but were overswept each tide and their being mingled again with
+the great sea.
+
+Christopher knew the work he had done had been good, that hundreds
+were the happier for his direct concern with their lives, that he
+indeed had made the Road of Life more possible for those who would set
+out thereon for far or nearer goals. It was all he aspired to do. He
+knew it was not his to show them the goal, or to direct them thereto;
+that was for themselves and others; but it was his to make the way
+possible, that they need not stumble on unbroken ground, or toil in
+blinding dust of ages, or wade in clogging mud of tradition, these
+children of the world who tramped with patient feet to a vague end.
+
+What was wrong was that he had chosen his own ground, that when he
+had stood at the cross roads of life he held himself qualified as a
+god to say "that road is evil and this good," taking council only of
+what was most in accord with his own will, forgetting that the Great
+Power embraces all within itself, knowing no good or evil, but seeing
+only a means to fulfil the eternal purpose of creation. It is we who
+must be the alchemists to transmute what we term evil into good, we,
+who are the servants and instruments by which that purpose must be
+achieved. If, seeing evil, we pass by on the other side, how shall the
+waste places of the earth be cleansed or the wilderness break forth
+into song?
+
+The message so roughly delivered had sunk into Christopher's heart at
+last. Looking back at his life he saw how everything had fitted him
+for the task he had refused. How he was born to it, trained to its
+needs unconsciously by his mother and Caesar, shaped by his own
+experience, armed by the completion of his inner life in his marriage.
+He had refused it with blindness, had closed his ears to the voice of
+thousands who had called to him in the unattractive voice of a
+conventional law. It had taken the deafening report of a madman's
+pistol and the sight of a dead child to teach him the lesson.
+
+At that thought he hid his face in his arm on the short turf and lay
+very still.
+
+The sea sung its endless Te Deum below him, a lark soared high to
+heaven with its morning hymn, and the wind, rustling along the cliff
+edge, breathed strength to the land. Day stood free and open upon
+earth and called for service from those to whom the Dominion of the
+earth is promised. Only by service comes lordship, only by obedience
+can be found command.
+
+At the moment of renunciation, Christopher realised for the first time
+the greatness of the cost and knew how dear his life and surroundings
+were to him. The Roadmaker had been his own master; the successor of
+Peter Masters must be the servant of thousands. The work here would go
+on, there were men ready to take his place, but he found no salve in
+the thought. Deep in his heart he knew he feared the grim struggle
+that lay before him, the uprooting of the old "system," the
+antagonism, the necessary compromises, the slow result. His age, or
+rather his youth, would be a heavy weapon against him. How could he
+hope to make his voice heard above the dictates of a dozen committees
+of men intent on their personal interests? He told himself
+passionately the thing was Impossible, and as quickly came the
+remembrance of the hoarse cry for help that had made itself heard
+above the report of Plent's pistol.
+
+Step by step through the door of humility he reached the hall of
+Audience and in silence surrendered himself to the eternal Purpose.
+
+At length he again stood on the edge and looked out to sea and for the
+moment the simplicity instead of the complexity of life visible and
+invisible, was written on the face of the deep. He stood bareheaded
+and read the message thankfully and went back to the house with peace
+in his heart.
+
+He found a new beauty in the house he had made for himself, and as
+Patricia came down the garden path to meet him, he was glad for the
+real worth of the outward things he must surrender.
+
+She met him with a question on her lips which was not uttered in face
+of what she saw in his eyes. They stood for a moment with clasped
+hands and he looked at her smiling, and she at him gravely, and
+presently they walked to a corner of the garden overlooking the sea,
+from where each dear beauty of the place was visible.
+
+"Will it hurt you greatly to leave it, dear?" he asked, prefacing the
+inevitable with question of her will to do so.
+
+"Just as much as it will hurt you. No more or less," she answered, her
+head against his arm. "But I am glad it is so good to leave."
+
+"That's my mind, too. How do you know what I mean, though?"
+
+"I've always known it must come, Christopher."
+
+She spoke low and looked away, weakly hoping for the moment he would
+leave it at that, but Christopher never left uncertain points behind
+him.
+
+"You knew I should come to take this other work--this inheritance?"
+
+She nodded. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me so, Patricia?"
+
+"I was so sure you would know yourself. I hated to be the one to
+speak," her voice shook a little. "Oh, forgive me, Christopher,
+dearest," she cried suddenly, "it was weak of me, for I did know
+always, only I wanted all this for a little time so badly. Just a
+taste of the beautiful good life you had planned. I thought it would
+not matter, just two years."
+
+He put his arms round her and drew her close.
+
+"We have had it, beloved. It has been beyond anything I ever dreamt.
+Only--" his voice broke a little, "we must remember it had to be paid
+for--No, no," he cried, seeing the wave of sorrow sweep over her face,
+"not you. It is I who should have known and listened. My fault!"
+
+"It is I who should have spoken," she said steadily, "we can't divide
+ourselves even in this, dear, but we can bear it together."
+
+"And pay the debt together," he added and raised her face to his and
+kissed her. And they crossed the Threshold of the New with this
+understanding between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+In the great buildings in Princes Street, Birmingham, the days
+continued as of old, with the ebb and flow of business. On each floor
+clerks bent over their high desks and the workers of each concern sat
+behind their mahogany defences and toiled early and late for the
+treasure they desired. At stated times rows of grave gentlemen, who
+carried due notice of their own importance on their countenances, met
+in the respective committee rooms, and discussed wide interests with
+closed doors and a note of anxious irritation that was new since the
+demise of Peter Masters.
+
+He who had concentrated the whole of the executive business of these
+many affairs under one roof had done so of definite purpose and with
+no eye to merely his own convenience. His presence there was a
+tangible power offering a final court of appeal that, whether they
+knew it or not, had as great an effect on the various committees as it
+had on the managers of each business themselves.
+
+So perfect was the organisation and adjustment of the machinery of
+routine that after the dominant visible power had gone down to the
+land of shadows, the vague note of personal anxiety that lurked on
+each floor was the only perceptible change apparent in the great
+body.
+
+But the wives of the working heads could have told of more enduring
+change in men who have suddenly become responsible for great issues,
+for laws, for a system they had had no voice in founding. Men who
+found themselves limited masters where unconsciously they had been
+tools and were selected as such--there men sooner or later bend
+before the strain put on them and for the most part seek salvation in
+blind obedience to the rules they dare not criticise. In the daily
+compromise between the individual character and the system which he
+must serve, many an excellent man was ground down in nerve and heart
+and health to a strange shadow of his former self, and many a woman
+shed secret tears over half-understood changes in one near and dear to
+her.
+
+Mr. Saunderson by right of informal instructions, which no one
+troubled to dispute, acted as steward over the late Peter Masters'
+private affairs during those two years of waiting, and his stewardship
+was prosperous and able, but beyond that he neither would nor could
+move. To the appeals of distracted secretaries he only replied, "My
+dear sir, act to the best of your ability. I can only assure you your
+responsibilities are limited to two years."
+
+He never allowed to anyone the possibility that Peter Masters' son
+might even then fail to accept his place, but alone to himself he
+faced it often and felt his scanty hair whiten beneath the impending
+wreckage, if the misguided young man continued his foolish course.
+
+"He will probably wreck the whole thing if he accepts it," sighed Mr.
+Saunderson, "but at least it will be done legally, and in the regular
+course of things. If he'll only be sensible and see he's wanted just
+as a figurehead, everyone will be comfortable and prosperous."
+
+But he sighed again as he thought it, for Christopher did not at all
+strike him as a man likely to make a good figurehead, or to be the
+mouthpiece of a system he evidently disliked. He was even more
+confirmed in this opinion a fortnight after the unhappy affair at the
+Patrimondi works, when Christopher walked into his London office and
+without any explanation announced himself ready to take his place as
+Peter Masters' son. He was sufficiently wise to conceal his own
+triumph and accepted the intimation without question. As they sat
+there in the dull London office hour after hour, Mr. Saunderson
+realised that the mantle of Peter Masters, millionaire, had fallen on
+shoulders that would wear it maybe in a very different fashion, but
+none the less royally.
+
+"I am to understand then," said Christopher after long hours of
+instruction, "I can go there when I like, see what I like, decide what
+I like, at all events with regard to these mines and works which are
+almost private property."
+
+"You can go to-morrow if you like," answered his Mentor, rising. "I
+advise you to let things run for some time as they are, till you know
+the ropes."
+
+He went to a safe and unlocking it produced a key.
+
+"That is the key of your father's room at Princes Buildings," he said,
+putting it on the table. "There are two locks. Clisson, the head
+clerk, has the key of one and this is the other. You are free to walk
+straight in when you like, but it would be best to send Clisson a wire
+you are coming and he would bring you the day's business, your private
+affairs that is, precisely as he used to bring it to your father."
+
+This time, because he was looking intently at the young man, he saw
+his mouth tighten at that term and felt a resigned wonder thereat.
+
+Christopher took up the key and looked at it, thinking of all the
+doors in the world it would unlock for him, thinking of the powers of
+which it was a symbol, of how it fastened the door of his freedom and
+opened for him the door of a great servitude of which he was already
+proud.
+
+Mr. Saunderson also was silent a moment listening to his own thoughts
+and looking at Christopher with misgivings.
+
+"Will you live at Stormly Park?" he asked airily.
+
+"I expect so. It is not let, is it?"
+
+Mr. Saunderson permitted himself a little smile of superiority as he
+answered.
+
+"Everything has been kept just ready for you these two years. But it
+will hardly be to your taste. Perhaps you will like it done
+up--altered?"
+
+Christopher shook his head. "Not yet."
+
+"You can afford it, you know."
+
+At that the young man suddenly faced him, as if he meant to say
+something of importance, and stopped.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I can afford it," he returned, and added with apparent
+irrelevance, "Do you happen to know Stormly village, Mr. Saunderson?"
+
+"I've driven through it."
+
+Christopher nodded. "So have I. I'll not detain you any longer. Will
+you let Clisson know I shall be there on Thursday?"
+
+"Certainly. Will you like me to accompany you?"
+
+Christopher shook his head. "Not this time, I think. I would rather be
+alone."
+
+"And one thing," Mr. Saunderson coughed a little nervously, "the name?
+We can arrange the legal identification this afternoon, but what name
+will you ultimately take?"
+
+Christopher came to a standstill at the door. Here was a decision
+thrust on him for which he was oddly unprepared. He recognised at once
+it meant setting the seal to his own committal if he answered as the
+lawyer evidently expected and hoped he would do. He paused just long
+enough to remember how hardly he had taken Mr. Aston's insistence he
+should sign his marriage register as Aston Masters.
+
+"I must take the name since I take its belongings," he said ruefully,
+and Mr. Saunderson felt his victory was complete.
+
+On the following Thursday morning there was nothing in the aspect of
+earth or sky to indicate to the workers in Princes Buildings the
+importance of that day to their respective fortunes. On the top floor
+only a sense of gentle expectancy was present, and a complacent faith
+in their own readiness to receive and set at ease the young man who
+was to be the outward visible sign of all that for which they toiled
+so unceasingly.
+
+As an individual, the younger men bestowed a certain curiosity not
+unmixed with envy on him; as the successor of Peter Masters, they
+entertained no doubt whatever he would obediently adhere to the
+prescribed system as they themselves did. Christopher had arrived in
+Birmingham the night before and put up at an hotel. Early the next
+morning he went up the steps into the central corridor of the great
+buildings that were to all intents and purposes his. There was no one
+about but a lift boy who did not recognise him, but seeing him look
+round with deliberate curiosity, asked him civilly what floor he
+wanted.
+
+"Mr. Masters' private offices," Christopher explained. "Top floor,
+aren't they?"
+
+The boy nodded. Christopher studied him gravely as they went up in the
+lift as one of the smallest and probably least important items into
+whose service he had entered.
+
+The porter at the door of the offices asked Christopher his name, and
+he hesitated a moment.
+
+"You need not announce me," he said quietly, at last. "I am Mr.
+Masters."
+
+The man gave a guttural gasp of amazement. A rumour of the possible
+arrival of the young millionaire had percolated despite Mr. Clisson's
+care, through the range of desks to the doorkeeper, who without
+discernible reasons had expected some time in the day a procession of
+black coats and grave men to appear from the doors of the lift and
+with formal solemnity to proceed to the closely locked door of that
+remote silent office. He opened the door for this calm, quiet young
+man in flurried trepidation, half expecting that Mr. Clisson would
+dismiss him on the spot for transgressing such a fundamental rule as
+admitting a stranger without announcing his name, but as totally
+unable to disobey the stranger as if it were Peter Masters himself.
+
+Christopher walked quickly down the line of clerks, who looked up one
+after the other, and did not look back at their work again. At last a
+senior man advanced and accosted him.
+
+"Do you want Mr. Clisson, sir?" he asked, in a tone verging between
+deference and curiosity.
+
+Christopher said he did, and added abruptly, "I remember you, you are
+Mr. Hunter. I saw you four years ago when I came here with my
+father."
+
+He caught his breath when he had said it. It was purely involuntary.
+Some unaccountable association of ideas was bridging the distance
+between him and the dead man minute by minute. But Mr. Hunter
+transferred his allegiance from the dead to the living in that moment
+of recognition, and led him away to Mr. Clisson's hitherto
+all-important presence with mechanical alacrity rather than personal
+desire to relinquish the honours of escort.
+
+Mr. Clisson was a keen, sharp-featured man of narrow outlook, the best
+of servants, the worst of masters. A genius for detail and a
+miraculous memory had carried him from the position of junior clerk to
+his present prominence when the death of the Principal left him with
+his minute knowledge of routine and detail practically master of the
+situation as far as Mr. Saunderson was concerned. But his inability to
+bend with the need of the day, or to cope with wider issues than those
+concerned with office work had had far-reaching results, not even
+wholly unconnected with the tragedy in the mill yard at the Patrimondi
+works.
+
+He apologised to Christopher for the lack of a better reception, as if
+he, and not Christopher, were responsible for the informality of it.
+
+"We imagined from Mr. Saunderson's letter you would arrive by the
+12.30 from town. I had ventured to order lunch for you here on that
+understanding," the head clerk explained deferentially. "What will you
+like to do first, sir?"
+
+"I wish to go into the inner office and for you to carry on the usual
+routine precisely as in my father's time."
+
+There was no hesitation over the term now.
+
+"Bring me such letters and reports as you would bring him. I must find
+out for myself how much or how little of it I am capable of
+understanding."
+
+"It will be a question of practice rather than of understanding with
+you, sir, I am confident," returned Mr. Clisson politely, turning over
+in his mind what business it would be least embarrassing to submit to
+this decided young man.
+
+"It will be your business to see I get the practice," Christopher
+answered.
+
+Together they unlocked the door of Peter Masters' sanctum and the head
+clerk flung it open.
+
+"It is precisely as he left it that day. Nothing has been done
+excepting the sorting of the papers, which Mr. Saunderson and myself
+did between us. The last time Mr. Saunderson was here we had it
+cleaned out. You will find the bells and telephones all labelled. If
+you will wait a few minutes I will send a man in with ink and writing
+material, and the keys, and I will bring you this morning's letters
+myself."
+
+Christopher thanked him mechanically and entered the room. He stood in
+the window silently waiting, while a young clerk trembling with
+excitement performed the small services necessary, and asked
+nervously if he could do more.
+
+"Nothing else now. What is your name?"
+
+He gave it with faltering tongue. In the old days such an inquiry was
+a distinction hardly earned.
+
+Christopher was alone at last. He walked slowly across the room and
+sat down in his father's chair and touched the big bunch of keys laid
+there on the table before him.
+
+An overwhelming desire for some direct message from the dead man, some
+defined recognition of his right to be there at all, pressed on him.
+He opened the drawers and pigeon-holes of the great table with a faint
+hope he might light on some overlooked note, or uncomplete memorandum
+addressed to him. Mr. Saunderson had assured him no such thing existed
+beyond the curt exact clue he had put in his hand four years ago when
+the old will had been destroyed.
+
+He glanced at the neat documents, the piles of labelled papers; there
+was nothing personal here, nothing that conveyed any sense to him but
+that of a vast machine of which he had become a part.
+
+In the pen tray lay a collection of pen-holders and pencils, a knife
+he had seen his father use, and a smaller knife. He picked this up and
+looked at it.
+
+It was rather a unique little knife, with a green jade handle, and the
+initials A. A. were plainly engraved on the label. He had recognised
+it at once and he stared at it as it lay in his hand, trying to
+comprehend what its presence there might mean. He had lent it one day
+to Peter Masters, who had asked him where he had got it. And he had
+answered it had belonged to Aymer Aston, but he had found it as a boy
+and Aymer had given it to him. Peter had given it back without the
+further explanation that he had originally given it to Aymer. A day or
+so later Christopher had missed it, and he told his host regretfully
+it was lost. Again Peter failed to explain he was the finder. Yet
+here was the knife on the desk where he had sat day after day.
+
+Perhaps it had not seemed worth returning. Yet Christopher was
+curiously loath to accept that simple answer. It seemed to him as he
+fingered the smooth green sides, as if other fingers had done this in
+this precise spot before, a strange aching familiarity attached itself
+to the simple action. For someone's sake Peter Masters _had_ so
+touched and handled this cool green thing, he was sure of it, and
+suddenly he was conscious here was the message he sought. Here in the
+mere sensation of touch lay the thread of recognition that linked him
+with the dead man, so slight and intangible that it would bear no
+expression in heavy words.
+
+There was a knock at the door. Christopher laid the little green knife
+back in its place before he answered it. Mr. Clisson entered with a
+handful of letters.
+
+"This is a very good sample, sir. As many as you will get through at
+first, I expect," he said apologetically.
+
+He sat down opposite Christopher and handed him letter after letter,
+giving such explanations as were necessary. Christopher made few
+comments. He put the letters into two separate piles. Presently there
+was one concerning the sale of some land in the neighbourhood of the
+Stormly Foundry.
+
+"It is only just started, sir. I think we shall get a good price if we
+hold out."
+
+"I am not going to sell any land at all. You will write and say I have
+altered my mind."
+
+He spoke with the keen decision of his father. Mr. Clisson gazed at
+him with pained amazement.
+
+"It is only the leasehold we sell, sir, not the actual land."
+
+"I do not sell land," repeated Christopher sharply.
+
+"Of course, it shall be as you wish, sir."
+
+"Of course. Do you know if Mr. Fegan is still at Stormly Foundry?"
+
+"I can ascertain."
+
+"Do so. If he is, tell him to come and see me here to-morrow. And who
+is the best builder you employ?"
+
+"Builder? What kind of builder, sir?"
+
+"Bricks and mortar. Cottages. I don't want an architect. I'll employ
+the man we used in Hampshire."
+
+"You mean to build?"
+
+"I mean to build."
+
+Mr. Clisson coughed. "The late Mr. Masters found it did not pay----"
+
+"Mr. Clisson," said Christopher firmly, "let us understand one another
+from the beginning. I do not intend to work on the same lines as my
+father worked. I intend to do many things which he would not have
+done, but I am inclined to think he knew it would be so. I believe I
+am a very rich man. At all events I mean to spend a lot of money. You
+would have no objection to my spending it on yachts and motors and
+grouse moors, I suppose? These things do not, however, interest me.
+You probably won't approve of my hobbies, and I've no doubt I shall
+make heaps of mistakes, but I've got to find them out myself. You can
+help me make them, but once for all, never try to prevent me. Those
+are all the letters I can manage to-day. You can take the others. I'll
+answer these myself."
+
+The flabbergasted Mr. Clisson rose, trembling a little in his
+agitation.
+
+"I hope, Mr. Masters, I should know better than ever attempt to
+dictate to you on any matter."
+
+Christopher gave him one of his rare half-shy, half-boyish smiles and
+leant forward over the big desk.
+
+"Mr. Clisson, I shall need your help and advice every hour of the day.
+I haven't the slightest doubt you could dictate to me to my great
+material advantage on every point, only I don't care for this material
+advantage and I don't want us to misunderstand each other, that is
+all."
+
+Mr. Clisson thawed, but his soul was troubled. He looked at the
+letters as he gathered them up. It was a goodly pile yet left to his
+decision, but he missed one that Christopher had passed over without
+comment.
+
+"The application for the post of gardener at Stormly Park, sir. Did
+you wish to attend to that yourself?"
+
+"What has happened to Timmins? Wasn't that his name? Is he dead?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"He wishes to go?"
+
+Mr. Clisson shook his head. "It is simply a matter of routine, sir.
+Timmins is a very excellent man, but the invariable rule is that no
+one remains after they are fifty-five."
+
+"After they are fifty-five?" repeated Christopher slowly.
+
+"Not those employed in manual labour: with very few exceptions that
+is. Timmins will be fifty-five next month. He suffers from rheumatism
+already, I find."
+
+Christopher never took his eyes from the other's face.
+
+"He would be pensioned, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, dear me, no. We have no pension list. Timmins has received very
+high wages. He has no doubt put by a nice little sum."
+
+"How long has he worked for--for us?"
+
+"I cannot tell without reference. I believe for twenty years or so. I
+can easily ascertain."
+
+Christopher stared out of the window for so long that the head clerk
+thought he had forgotten the matter and was disagreeably surprised
+when he spoke again.
+
+"I shall be at Stormly this week and will see if Timmins wishes to
+retire or not. You have no fault to find with him as a gardener, I
+suppose?"
+
+Mr. Clisson smiled. "A man who has served for twenty years will not be
+an indifferent workman sir. Timmins' accounts are exemplary."
+
+"The matter will stand over. Please see no one is dismissed under this
+age regulation without my knowledge. That is all now." His manner was
+as curt again as his father's. Mr. Clisson closed the door behind him
+with a vague feeling that the two years of his authority were but a
+dream and that the thin, square figure behind the office table had
+unaccountably widened out to the portly proportions of his old
+master.
+
+Christopher drew to him the pile of letters he had reserved and fell
+to work. He dared not allow himself to think yet, but now and again
+when his heart and soul ran counter to the tenor of what he read he
+put out his hand and touched the little green knife his father had
+handled for some unknown person's sake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+"I understand the fortune well enough now," said Christopher bitterly;
+"anyone can do it if they take one aspect of things and subordinate
+everybody and everything to it."
+
+He was at Marden again. It was a glorious spring evening and Caesar's
+couch was drawn up to the open window. Mr. Aston sat on the far side
+of it and Christopher leant against the window-frame smoking moodily.
+
+"You will dissipate it fast enough at the rate you are going,"
+remarked Caesar. His eyes followed every movement of the young man with
+a jealous hunger.
+
+Christopher shook his head resignedly. "It can't be done. It goes on
+making itself. We are going to allow ourselves ten thousand a year.
+It's a fearful lot for two people"--his eyes wandered across the lawn
+to Patricia, where she sat with Renata--"or even three, but that's
+what it costs to live properly at Stormly, and the rest has to be used
+somehow."
+
+"How about Stormly Park? Do you and Patricia like the place?"
+
+He shook his head again. "I'm afraid we don't. We both feel we are
+living in an hotel. But I must be there on the spot, and she too. As
+it is, we have only had time to do so little."
+
+"Cottages, schools, hospitals," murmured Mr. Aston, softly.
+
+"They are only means to an end," returned Christopher quickly, "only
+what they are entitled to as human beings in a civilised world. Think
+of having to begin at that. We've got to make restitution before we
+can make progress. They mistrust all one does, of course. They use the
+bathrooms as coal stores, their coppers for potatoes, their allotments
+as rubbish ground, but it's better than the front yard, and, anyhow,
+the children will know a bit more about it."
+
+"You have laid down Patrimondi roads for them," Caesar put in.
+
+"Of course," Christopher answered, accepting it literally, "they
+appreciate _that_ at least. The roads were beastly."
+
+Mr. Aston looked at Caesar and they both smiled.
+
+"I've persuaded Sam to open a shop in Stormly and put Jim into it. He
+_says_ you can't make a living honestly in grocery, but I'd take
+himself in preference to his word."
+
+"You've beaten him after all, old chap."
+
+It was Caesar who spoke, and he held out his thin hand towards his big
+boy, who came and sat by him in silence a while. The twilight crept up
+over the earth and freed the soul of things as it stole their material
+forms. The two men looking out and watching the gentle robber, wasted
+no regrets on the day, no fears on the approaching night. Behind them,
+where Mr. Aston sat, it was dark already, and as his son watched
+Christopher, so he watched Aymer.
+
+"We have made our roads," he thought, "Aymer and I, and thank God we
+leave behind us a better Roadmaker still, who will make smooth paths
+for the children's feet."
+
+Outside two white figures came slowly towards the house and were
+joined by a third, Nevil, to judge by his height.
+
+"Caesar," said Christopher, "have you forgiven me taking my own way and
+giving up what you gave me?"
+
+"Do you think I see anything to forgive in it?"
+
+"You gave me my choice, and you gave me my chance. It looked on the
+surface so ungrateful," persisted Christopher.
+
+"You question the quality of my eyesight?"
+
+"I doubt your forgiveness when you are so flippant, my best of
+fathers."
+
+"For what do you want forgiveness specifically?"
+
+"For giving up my work as a Roadmaker."
+
+"I did not know you had given it up."
+
+In the quiet hours of the night Aymer Aston paced those even roads his
+feet had never trodden, saw them spreading far and wide across the
+earth, heard the echo of countless footsteps stepping down the ages,
+knew that life itself was made an easier road for thousands of little
+feet that would take their first steps on better ground than their
+parents had done, knew that there were less crippled, less maimed,
+less halt in the sum total of the world's suffering by reason of one
+Roadmaker's career.
+
+But it was Aymer Aston with the crippled form and maimed life who had
+put the spade first into the Roadmaker's hand.
+
+Meanwhile the Roadmaker slept the sleep of the just and forgot all
+these things.
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Spelling and punctuation have been preserved as printed except
+  as indicated below. The following changes were made to the original
+  text. The change is enclosed in parentheses:
+
+  Page 15: and what there was so essentially fitted its place that it
+  was unobtrusive (added a period at the end of unobtrusive)
+
+  Page 82: at the dull red mark of which =Chirstopher= (Christopher)
+
+  Page 143: "Christopher does.' (changed single quote mark to a
+  double quote mark at the end of the sentence)
+
+  Page 242: "Never since Mrs. Masters went out of it." (removed extra
+  double quote mark at the end of the sentence)
+
+  Page 258: He looked very worn and tired when he joined =Renate=
+  (Renata)
+
+  Page 305: changed quote marks from "Ecco il 'Roadmaker'" to 'Ecco
+  il 'Roadmaker.''" to correct punctuation inconsistency.
+
+  Page 323: the weight of this =stupenduous= burden (stupendous)
+
+  Page 338: "Then I dismiss further responsibility. I'm really more
+  pleased than I can say, Christopher. Poor little Patricia! What
+  fortune for her! (added double quote mark at the end of the sentence)
+
+  The following words were found in variable forms in the original text
+  and both versions have been retained: bookcase (book-case);
+  commonsense (common-sense); downland (down-land); hairs-breadth
+  (hair's-breadth); highroad (high-road); milestone (mile-stone);
+  roadside (road-side); teapot (tea-pot); unbiased (unbiassed).
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER HIBBAULT, ROADMAKER***
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