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."