"What a nuisance. But, anyhow, Jessie isn't engaged, is she?"

For an instant he had a glimpse of Mrs. Sartin's full face, dubious, questioning, even hostile, but to him it was merely the result of flickering light and conveyed nothing.

"I don't rightly know," she said slowly, "maybe she doesn't care much for gadding about."

"Rubbish," he retorted contemptuously, "if you can't come, Jessie must anyway."

Mrs. Sartin held firmly to the carriage door and the oscillation of the cab caused her to nod violently, but it was not in assent to Christopher's proposition. She appeared to be turning something over in her slow mind.

"I don't know but what I could arrange with Eliza," she remarked.

"Of course you can, like a good woman; and you and Jessie come up to Aston House at one o'clock and say where you'd like to go, and we'll go."

Martha demurred. "Mr. Aston won't like it."

"Won't like what?"

"Our comin' to 'is 'ouse, like as if we 'ad any claim on you."

"Do I or you know Mr. Aston best?" he demanded imperiously. "Claim indeed. Martha, you dear old stupid, where would I be now, if you hadn't taken my mother in?"

"That were just a chance, Mr. Christopher, because I 'appened to be comin' 'ome late and your pore ma was took bad on the bridge as I crossed, and bein' a woman what 'ad a family, I saw what was the matter."

"What was it more than a chance that Caesar in looking for a boy to adopt stumbled on the son of someone he used to know?"

Again the oscillation made Mrs. Sartin nod vigorously. She bestowed on her companion another of those shrewd, dubious glances, began a sentence and stopped.

"Yes. What were you saying?" asked Christopher absently.

"You've come quite far enough, Mr. Christopher," she announced, with the air of a woman come to a decision, "you just tell that man on the top to stop and let me out. Thanking you all the same, but I don't care to be seen driving 'ome this time of night and settin' folks a-talking. You set me down, there's a dear Mr. Christopher."

She got her way in the matter of dismissing the cab, but not in dismissing Christopher, her primary desire, lest an indiscreet tongue should prompt her to say more than was "rightful," as she explained to Jessie.

"For if the dear innocent don't see 'ow the land lays, it isn't for me to show 'im, and Mr. Aymer so good to Sam."

"Maybe you are all wrong," said Jessie shortly.

Mrs. Sartin sniffed contemptuously.

The Sartins no longer inhabited Primrose Buildings, but were proud inhabitants of a decent little house in a phenomenally dull street, sufficiently near the big "Store" to suit Sam's convenience. Sam himself came to the door and, late as it was, insisted on walking back with Christopher into the region of cabs, and, becoming engrossed in conversation, naturally walked far beyond it.

"This partnership business," began Sam at once, "I do wish, Chris, you'd get Mr. Aymer to make it a loan business. I'd be a sight better pleased."

"I can't for the life of me see why," Christopher objected with a frown. "It's only a matter of a few hundred pounds, and if Caesar chooses to spend it on you instead of buying a picture or enamel, or that sort of toy, why should you object. It's not charity."

"Then what is it?" demanded Sam, "because I'm not a toy. Don't fly out at me, Chris, be reasonable. I'm as grateful to him as I can be, and I mean to use the chance he's given me all I can. But this partnership business beats me. It's all very well for him to do things for you. Of course he couldn't do less; but how do I come in?"

A drunken man reeled out of a house and lurched against Christopher, who put out his hand to steady him without a word of comment, and when the drinker had found his balance, he turned again to Sam with sharp indignation.

"He could do a jolly sight less for me and still be more generous than most people's fathers. There's no 'of course' about it."

Sam stared stolidly in front of him.

"That's just it. It's one thing to do it for someone belonging to one, and another thing to do it for a stranger," he persisted.

"Well, that's just how I feel, only I don't make a fuss. It's Caesar's way, and a precious good way for us."

They parted at last with no better understanding on the vexed subject, and Christopher, once back at Aston House, sat frowning over the fire instead of going to bed. Why all of a sudden had this question of his amazing indebtedness to Aymer been so persistently thrust on him. Hitherto he had accepted it with generous gratitude, without question, had recognised no room for speculation, allowed no play to whispers of curiosity. It was Caesar's will. Now he was suddenly aware, however he might close his mind, others speculated; however guard his soul from inquisitiveness, others questioned, and it angered him for Caesar's sake. His mother had never spoken to him of the past, never opened her lips as to the strange sacrifice she had made for her unborn child, except once when they were hurriedly leaving London by stealth, after the episode with Martha Sartin's rascally husband. Mrs. Hibbault had remarked wearily: "I wonder, Jim, shall I spend my life taking you out of the way of bad men?"

When he asked her if she had done it before she answered: "I took you from your father." It was the only time he remembered her mentioning that unknown father; he recollected still how her face had changed and she had hurried her steps, as if haunted by a new suspicion.

It gave him quite unreasonable annoyance that these thoughts intruded themselves to-night, when he wanted to give his full attention to the wonder and glory of the discovery he had made in Constantia Wyatt's company. That was, indeed, a matter of real moment. How had he contrived to be blind to it so long? He had not reached the age of twenty-one without entertaining vague theories concerning love, and having definitely decided that it had nothing to do with the travesty of its name which had confronted him on his wanderings. Neither taste nor training, nor the absorbing passion for his work had left him time or wish to explore this field which roused only an impatient contempt when thrust on his notice. Of Love itself, as before stated, he held vague theories: regarding it rather as a far-off event which would meet him in future years and land him eventually at Hymen's feet. And here he found all such theories suddenly reversed. The first moment the idea of marriage was presented to his notice the vision of the only possible bride for him stood out with quite definite distinctness. Instead of Love being a prelude to the thought of Marriage, that thought had been the crashing chords that had opened his mind to Love. But the Love had been already there, unrecognised. He found he could no way now imagine himself as apart from Patricia. To eliminate her presence from his heart was to lose part of his individuality; to separate his practical life from her was as if he wantonly destroyed a limb. Away from her actual presence and before this dual conception of themselves he was of assured courage, thankfulness and strange joy, but the moment his thoughts flew to her in concrete form, to Patricia Connell at Marden Court, he experienced a reversion: his confidence was gone, the assured vision became a very far-away possibility, a glory which he might hardly hope to attain.

Very slowly this latter aspect blotted out the first triumphant joy of his discovery. Mundane things, such as Renata Aston's wishes, Caesar's consent, and even the person of Geoffry Leverson interposed between Patricia and him. This mood had its sway and in turn succumbed to an awakening of his dormant will and every fighting instinct. Patricia must be his, was his potentially, but he recognised she was not his for the asking. He would have to acquire the right to say to Caesar, "I want to marry Mrs. Aston's sister." Aymer might easily make the way smooth for him, if he would. He had no reason then for believing he would oppose the idea. Yet Christopher knew that in the gamut of possible needs and desires the one thing he could not freely accept from Caesar's hands was his wife. His life was before him, before Patricia too. When he reached this point in his deliberation he made a sudden movement. The fire had gone out and it was very cold. Christopher decided it was time to go to bed.



CHAPTER XV

Jessie proved by no means averse to "gadding about," as her mother expressed it. She and Mrs. Sartin turned up punctually at Aston House, though laden with an air of desperate resolve. On their way they had both cheerfully concealed some tremulous qualms and neither had ventured to express a dormant wish that Mr. Christopher had chosen some other spot for lunch than the lordly, sombre, half-opened house. It was not until they stood beneath the great portico that their vague discomfort got the upper hand, and Mrs. Sartin agreed without demur to Jessie's suggestion that they should seek a smaller entrance. As they were turning away the great door swung open and Christopher came out.

"How jolly of you to be so punctual," he cried, greeting them warmly. "Where were you off to? Did you think I wasn't at home because the blinds were down? They don't open all the house for me," he added, leading the way through the great hall. "I live on the garden side."

Mrs. Sartin had no mind to hurry: she wanted to take in the solid beauties as she passed. Jessie plucked her nervously by the sleeve seeing Christopher was outpacing them, and terrified of being left in that labyrinth of corridor without a guide. However, once within the sunny little room with its homely comforts and Christopher's kindly self for host, they regained their wonted composure.

The smallness of the staff left in charge at Aston House gave Christopher an excuse for dispensing with the services of Burton, the footman, and the meal was a great success. It never occurred to the host to think these good kind friends of his in any way out of place here. His sense of humour was quite unruffled, nay, he was even genuinely pleased to see the good, ample Martha, the strings of her black bonnet untied, her face wreathed in smiles, vigorously clearing out a tart dish, and Jessie's homely features lit up with passive enjoyment, her brown eyes shining beneath the ridiculous curls.

They had chosen the Hippodrome for their afternoon's amusement, and there was plenty of time after lunch to show them some of the glories of Aston House. Christopher led them through the shrouded rooms, but the treasures he displayed to view were not so much those of artistic merit as those which had pleased his own boyish fancy years before. Passing down a corridor he stopped by a remote closed door. Jessie was examining some Wedgewood plaques a little way off. Christopher looked at Mrs. Sartin with a queer little smile.

"When I was a kid," he said rather shamefacedly, "I used to play that my mother was going about the place with me. You see there were no women-folk, and the pretence seemed to help things. I used to make it seem more real by always starting here, and pretending that was her room. It was the only door that was always locked."

"Lor', what a queer idea!" ejaculated Mrs. Sartin, gazing suspiciously at the closed door.

Christopher laughed. "Oh, I've been in since; there's nothing there but newspapers, quite a dull little room. But it was an odd fancy. My feeling was so strong I used to take her round and show her things I've shown you to-day. I always wanted to show them to someone instead of the real treasures, which are rather dull, you know."

Mrs. Sartin said again it was very queer. She followed Jessie and Christopher reluctantly with backward glances towards the door, full of puzzled suspicion. When they were again in the hall it was time to start for the Hippodrome, and there was a great deal of patting of hats and tying of strings before a Venetian mirror.

But Aymer Aston's room, with its world-famed pictures, was unvisited.

When the Hippodrome performance was over and he had seen his guests safely homeward, Christopher called on Constantia Wyatt and found her in. She seemed in no wise surprised to see him, but asked him promptly when he was going down to Marden.

"I don't know," he said slowly, his eyes on the fire, "I don't think I shall go back yet."

Constantia rang the bell and told the footman she was not at home, and then drew her chair up to the fire and made Christopher some fresh tea.

"Is London proving so very attractive?" she inquired.

"I shan't stay in town. I think I shall go abroad again. I want to think."

"Dear, dear. Is Marden such a bad atmosphere for the intelligence?"

He coloured up boy-like and then laughed.

"There are too many clever people to help one think there. Also there is a man in Belgium trying some private road experiments. I want to help him."

"What will Aymer say to it?"

"He thinks I've been idle long enough."

"And the man in Belgium will help you to think?"

"I'm afraid that's my own job."

Constantia rose and wandered round the room, vaguely touching a flower here and there and presently came to stand behind her visitor's chair. She was thinking how young he was, and how strong, and that Patricia was a fortunate girl. Her eyes were very soft and kind as she bent over his chair and touched his shoulder with her fingers.

"Christopher, you are in love!"

Very young indeed, was her inward comment on his startled wondering face turned to her.

"How do you know?" he asked, making no denial of the fact. Denial would have savoured of disloyalty to his new kingdom.

She laughed gently. "Don't you even know that? What a lot I could teach you if Aymer would hand you over. Listen, Master Christopher, love is the only thing men want to think about alone, just as it's the only thing a woman never wants to keep to herself. You could think to much better advantage at Marden but it's no use telling you so. You won't believe it."

"I do believe it, only it's not a question of my advantage, you see."

"There spoke Aymer's pupil. Remember roads take a good deal of making and short cuts were made for—lovers."

She returned to the fire and stood there looking at him with an interest that surprised herself: a tall, gracious presence whose knowledge of his secret hurt not one bit, so clearly did it lie within the realms wherein all gracious, tender women reign.

Then she changed the subject quite abruptly, thrust it back into those hazy regions of speculation from which Christopher had so hardly and impatiently dragged it the previous night.

"I wonder if your mother were alive, if she would be satisfied with you, Christopher, and if she would still want to make a socialist of you."

"My mother?" he echoed dully.

For a while he struggled with a strange inability to lay hold on the shadowy form he knew so well. He looked round the beautiful room that was but a setting to a lovely woman and then back at her. Why had she spoken of his mother? He again attempted to crystallise the thought of the dearly loved, defeated woman in the presence of her to whom the world denied nothing.

"I can't do it," he said aloud with a quick breath.

"Do what?" she queried swiftly, but got no answer.

"Was my mother a socialist?" he asked presently with difficulty.

"So I have always understood."

"Who told you so?"

"My father. I thought you knew that, Christopher, or I should not have mentioned it. All I know is, she chose to be poor rather than expose you to the dangers of wealth. I know nothing else."

Christopher stood up. "Thank you," he said, "I believe I did know that, but I have never been reminded of it. I do not know her story: I suppose she did not wish me to know it, but I do know whatever she chose, whatever she did, it was chosen and done because it seemed to her the right course and therefore the only one she could take."

Constantia nodded, still gazing at the fire.

"Aymer's training on the top of that," she mused, "I suppose you are accounted for."

He grew red and looked a boy again. "I should have much to account for if I failed them."

"Them?" She swung round.

"Caesar and my mother."

There was a pause.

"And so you will go to Belgium and think?" she said lightly.

"No, I shall go to Belgium and work."

"You said think," she insisted.

"I have thought here. I was not sure when I came, but I am now."

"May I know what you have thought?"

For a moment the strangeness of speaking to her like this held him dumb. How did it happen she should know so much and must know more, she who had been barely a real individual to him before? It bewildered and confused him. He did not understand that the unspoken passionate claim he made on one woman had broken the barriers between him and woman-kind, that because he loved Patricia Connell he could speak to Constantia Wyatt, for they stood together on holy ground.

"You have every right. You helped me after all," he said doubtfully, but smiling "I ought not to have hesitated. Caesar is waiting for me to make roads, not to take short cuts."

"You think love can better afford to wait than Caesar?"

"I have my life before me."

"And if you lose her?"

"It is settled," he said simply.

She drew in her breath. By every law of man he was right, and yet all the woman in her cried out against this decision as falseness to some other law imperfectly understood, but clamorous for recognition. Nevertheless how her heart went out to him for the quiet finality of that refusal to yield to a law not of his own making! She was proud he was so much the handiwork of Aymer, while she recognised the very weakness of his strength.

"He will lose her," she mused as she sat alone when he had gone, "and it would break Aymer's heart if he knew, but he won't know. He has succeeded in making a man of him, but, oh, what a nice boy he would have been!"

So Christopher turned his back on the great discovery and went to Belgium. Whereupon Patricia complained bitterly, but her golf improved, and Geoffry Leverson, who knew nothing of road-making, started on a very short cut indeed.

The Roadmaker remained in Belgium longer than he expected and in the laboratory of a great man stumbled on the key of the discovery that in a few years was to make him famous from one end of Europe to the other.

When the apple blossoms were again blushing pink across the land and the blue sky was piled high with dreams of love castles, Christopher remembered the short cut and abruptly announced his intention of returning home. He sent no warning of his coming, but arrived one day at Aston House with his beloved car. It was in his heart to continue his journey straight away, but thinking what pleasure it would give Aymer to watch the practical working of his experiment, he put aside the dictates of his desires and spent the day purchasing materials. Also he called on Constantia and found himself incomprehensibly making excuses for the delay. "I shall go down early to-morrow," he said; "it can make no difference, since they do not know I am in England."

"No, I don't suppose it can," said Constantia thoughtfully.



CHAPTER XVI

Christopher flecked an imaginary speck of dust from the burnished metal of his car. He was all ready to start, but seeing a postman coming up the drive, waited to take down the latest delivery of letters, and as he waited a hansom drove up, and since his car occupied the portico, stopped at the side. A big form emerged with a jovial red face and wide shoulders. It was six years since Christopher had seen the man, but his name and personality and, above all, the antipathy with which he had formerly inspired him flashed with lightning vividness to his mind. Peter Masters glanced at Christopher with a momentary puzzled look and turned to ring the bell.

"If you want to see Mr. Aston, Mr. Masters, he is at Marden, and Aymer also. I'm just going down."

"Ah." The keen eyes searched him up and down. "I've seen you before; can't place you, though; you aren't Nevil's boy."

"No, I'm——" Christopher hardly knew why he changed the form of his answer, or that he had. "I'm the boy Aymer adopted. You saw me about six years ago."

"Oh, I remember. Christopher Aston, they call you. You did not like me. What have you done with that clever head of yours, eh?"

Christopher carefully examined a nut on the car.

"Well, never mind. When will Cousin Charles be back?"

"Not until May if he can help it."

"Not well?"

"Quite well, thank you."

Peter Masters stood biting his lip and considering. The footman brought out some letters which Christopher put in his pocket and then mounted.

"Can I take any message for you?" he asked politely.

"Are you going straight to Marden now?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

Christopher devoutly hoped he was, but a sudden fear assailed him: he would not make the momentous journey in solitude. He answered somewhat indistinctly.

"You might run me down; I must see Cousin Charles."

"I should warn you it is a new road to me and I've had my car nearly a year; it's due to go wrong somehow, and I drive rather fast."

"I expect you set sufficient value on your own life to insure mine."

"It will be cold. You can't ride in that thin coat."

"You pass the Carlton; I'm staying there. It won't delay us two minutes. What luck."

He walked round and got into the car, oblivious of the trifling fact its owner had neither acquiesced nor expressed an enthusiasm over the luck.

"I hope he is nervous," thought Christopher vindictively, "though there's not much chance of it. He hasn't much hair to stand on end, but I'll do my best to make it."

Peter Masters rolled himself contentedly in the spare rug. "Ready," he said cheerfully.

Christopher, however, made no attempt to start. He beckoned to the footman.

"Fetch me the blue paper-covered book you'll find on the second left-hand shelf of the low book-case in my room, Burton."

He waited immovable while the man went on the errand, being quite determined to start unprompted by Mr. Masters if he started at all. The old butler came out and acknowledged Mr. Masters's presence with a deferential bow. He addressed himself to Christopher.

"Mr. Christopher, will you tell Mr. Aymer we've raised the Raphael in his room, as he said, four inches, but the paper is a little faded and it shows. What will he like us to do?"

Christopher nodded. "All right, I'll tell him. I shall probably be up again next week."

"We shall be glad to see you again, sir."

Burton returned in indecorous hurry with the book. Christopher bade them good-bye in a friendly way and the car glided quietly down the drive out into the busy thoroughfare.

"You are quite at home there," remarked Mr. Masters affably.

"It happens to be my home."

It was a very busy hour and the driver of the car might reasonably be excused if he were silent. At all events if Mr. Masters spoke, Christopher did not hear him. They slipped in and out of the traffic, glided round corners, slid with smooth swiftness along free stretches of road, crept gingerly across a maze of cross-ways and drew up at the Carlton.

Peter Masters, who appreciated the situation and found humour in it, plunged into that Palace of Travellers and reappeared in an incredibly short time, coated for the occasion.

"Now," he said cheerily, "we are ready for the fray—when you are ready, Master Christopher," he added with a twinkle in his eye.

But Christopher's ill-temper had evaporated with the short wait. After all, the man was Aymer's cousin, and he couldn't help being a brute, and if he really wanted to see St. Michael perhaps it was a piece of luck for him that the postman was late. So he laughed and said a little shyly he hoped Mr. Masters would not mind his not talking till they were out of the streets.

"I shall expect conversation with compound interest," returned the other good-humouredly.

He was, however, quite quiet until Christopher turned into a narrow back street.

"That's not your best way," said Peter Masters sharply.

"I'm going to call on a friend," replied the driver without apology.

They threaded their way through a maze of small ill-looking streets, slowly enough, for there were children all over the road; not infrequently a big dray forced them to proceed backwards. Masters noted that Christopher never expected the legitimate traffic should give way to him. They emerged at last on a crowded thoroughfare of South London, where small shops elbowed big ones and windows blazed with preposterous advertisements. There were trams too, and scarcely room for the big car between rail and pavement. Presently they stopped before a prosperous-looking grocery store. A white-aproned man rushed out with undisguised complacency to wait on the fine equipage.

"I want to see Mr. Sartin if he's free," said Christopher, and waited quietly.

In a minute Sam was with them, white-aproned, pencil behind ear. To Masters's amusement his companion greeted the young grocer with the familiarity of long friendship.

"I heard from Jessie the other day," said Christopher when he had explained his appearance; "what about this man Cladsley? Is she going to marry him?"

Sam looked down the street, a little frown on his face.

"Jessie'd no business to write you. Cladsley's all right. Don't you worry about Jessie."

"I'm not worrying," laughed the other, "I only wanted to be sure it was suitable and all that."

"I'll look after Jessie." The words were ungracious, but Sam looked worried and uncertain. "You've done enough for us."

"You old dog in the manger," persisted Christopher good-temperedly, "you'll never let me do anything for Jessie, and, after all, it was she who used to take my part when you fought me, Master Sam, and wouldn't let you bully me."

Sam grinned. "Yes, it was always Jim that was in the right then. Don't you bother. Cladsley's a good sort if she would only make up her mind."

"I gathered his job would be up soon and I thought I might find another for him if it's all straight with them. That's why I came to see you."

Sam appeared still reluctant.

"It's all beastly stuck-up pride on your part," concluded Christopher after more argument. "I expect you'll cut me next; you are getting too prosperous, Mr. Sartin."

But they parted good friends, and the car re-threaded its way through the crowded streets out into a meaner, more deserted neighbourhood, till at length they emerged on a long empty straight road with small yellow brick houses on either side, as yet uninhabited.

"What's the engaging young grocer's name?" asked Masters abruptly.

"Sartin—Sam Sartin."

"Known him long?"

"We were children together."

"Relations, perhaps?"

"No."

"Why did he call you Jim?"

"I used to be Jim."

"James Aston?"

"No."

"What then?"

"I've forgotten," said Christopher very deliberately.

Mr. Masters laughed genially. "I like a good liar. You don't want to tell me anything about yourself. Very likely you are wise, but all the same I am very curious to know all about you—who you are, and how you came to the Astons, and who was your mother, and when and where Aymer met her. You see," he added confidentially, "I used to be about with Aymer a good bit and I thought I knew all——" He stopped abruptly. If he were being purposely tactless he realised he had gone far enough.

"I do not think Aymer ever met my mother. I am certain you haven't. Mr. Aston used to know her, and suggested Aymer's adopting me when he heard I was left stranded in a workhouse. I was just a workhouse boy. Now, are you satisfied as to my private history, sir?"

"No," retorted the inquisitor good-humouredly as ever, "you must have had a father, you know."

"It seems possible. I do not remember him."

He began to resign himself to fate and this Juggernaut of a man who rolled other people's feelings flat with no more compunction than a traction engine.

"Fathers are useful. You may want to remember, some-day."

"I'm quite satisfied at present."

"I'm not suggesting you have anything to complain of. Aymer doesn't do things by halves. Christopher is as much a family name as Aston, for example."

Something in his tone caught Christopher's attention and he looked at him sharply. Peter Masters was gazing straight before him with that same cynical smile on his face it had worn when Christopher was first introduced to him six years ago.

"I wonder why on earth they did that?" ruminated the Juggernaut. "Cousin Charles is capable of any unworldly folly, but Aymer was a man of the world once. It looks like colossal bluff."

And then the meaning of all this swept over Christopher's mind like a wave of fire, scorching his soul, desecrating and humiliating the very mainspring of his life.

Aymer's son! He knew Masters believed it as surely as if he had blurted it out in his own unbearable way, and it was not to save him, it was from no sense of decency Masters had not said it audibly. Christopher longed to fling the unspoken lie back to him, to refuse the collaboration of detail that the passing minutes crowded on his notice. He put on speed; tried to outstrip the evil thought of it, to think only of Caesar, the dear companion of his days, the steady friend, the unobtrusive mentor and guide. But a thought he could not outstrip slipped into his mind so insidiously and stealthily, he could not tell how or whence it came.

"You only know Caesar; you never knew Aymer Aston of the silent past."

Faster and faster rushed the car in futile attempt to outpace the whispered treason. The speed indicator stood at 40 and still mounted.

"I should like to remark," said Peter Masters thoughtfully, "that I have not yet made my will and it would cause some inconvenience to a vast number of people to have several millions left masterless."

"It's an open road," returned Christopher, "I know what I'm at. I expect I enjoy life as much as you do."

He slowed down suddenly, however, to about twenty miles an hour to pass an old woman in a donkey cart, and the hateful thought swept on in advance apparently, for he overtook it again when their speed ran up ten points.

Christopher had chosen a rather circuitous route which offered fewer villages than the general high-road. It was a glorious day, the banks were starry with primroses, and all the hedgerows, just bursting into green rosettes, were hunting ground for birds innumerable.

Green emerald grass in water-meadows, fresh green growth on the hillside, and red bud and green promise hung from every tree. The crisp air whispered warnings of frosts still to come, but braced the nerve and gladdened the heart nevertheless, and called imperiously to youth to seek its kingdom. Christopher was at no pains to spare the nerves of the master of millions, and though he invariably crept through villages and towns sedately and drove with an eye for crossroads and distant specks on the white track before him, they swept through the open country with a breathless rush.

How good it would have gone alone, Christopher thought savagely, and resentment rose high in his heart. He was going to meet Patricia for the first time with understanding eyes. In the past months his love had grown with steady insistence until the imperious voice of spring, singing in concord with it, had overridden the decision of his stubborn will, demanding surrender, clamorous for recognition, and now having allowed the claim he was again forced back on the unsolved question of his own history. It was as if some imp of mischief had coupled his love to the Past, and had left him without knowledge to loose the secret knot. The silence became intolerable for fear of the next words that might break it from his companion. It would be better to take control himself—so he slackened speed a little and had the satisfaction of hearing Peter Masters heave a relieved sigh.

"The roads here need re-making," as they proceeded bumpily over a rather bad piece of ground.

"For motors?"

"For everything. A road should be easy going for motors, horses, and foot-passengers. Easy and safe."

"How would you do it?"

"A raised causeway for walkers; a road for carriages, and a track for motors. It only means so many yards more and there is plenty of land. Look at that turf—four yards of it. Might as well be road."

"What are you going to make your roads of?"

Christopher took a deep breath; the pace of the car increased a little.

"That has to be found—will be found. It is a question of time."

"And you mean to find it?"

"A good many people mean to find it."

Masters shook his head.

"It won't pay you so well as iron, Master Christopher. My offer is still open."

Christopher was so surprised that he nearly swerved into an unfenced pond they were passing.

"It was very kind of you to make it again," Christopher managed to stammer out, adding with a bluntness worthy of Masters himself, "I never could understand why you made it at all."

"Neither do I," returned Peter Masters with a laugh, "and I generally know what I'm at. Perhaps I thought it would please Aymer. As I told you just now, we were friends before his accident. I suppose you've heard all about that?"

For a brief moment Christopher felt temptation grip him. He was convinced the man beside him knew the untold story, and at this juncture in his life he would give much to understand all those things he had never questioned or ventured to consider. Then recognising disloyalty in the very thought, he hastened to escape the pitfall. It was no use to take half measures with this man, however, so he lied again boldly.

"Of course I know," and went back again to safer ground. "Whatever your reasons, it was good of you to think of me and kinder still to renew your offer. I expect you will think me a silly fool of a boy to refuse it again."

"Not exactly; but a boy brought up by an Aymer Aston the second."

"That is sufficient luck for one boy to grab out of life."

Peter Masters chuckled. "I take it, young man, you'd rather be fathered by Aymer than by me, eh?"

Christopher muttered a very fervent affirmative between clenched teeth, which did not appear to reach his hearer's ears, for as Masters finished his own sentence he shot a sudden, sharp, puzzled look at Christopher, and his teeth shut together with a click. He spoke no more and when Christopher hazarded a remark he got no answer.

The glory of the day was at its height when Marden came in sight; the whole world seemed to have joined in a peon of thanksgiving which for the moment drowned the unwonted echoes in Christopher's heart that Peter Masters's hard voice had awoken.

Youth was his, Love was his, and Patricia was to be his, and he was going to see her. He covered the distance from the lodge gates to the house in a time that taxed his companion's nerve to the uttermost and bid fair to outpace even the throbbing, rushing pulse of spring that filled the land.



CHAPTER XVII

Patricia was in the orchard, and not only in the orchard, but of it, for she was comfortably perched on a low bough of an ancient hoary apple tree. She had a volume of Robert Bridges's poems in her hand and a thirst was on her to be at the edge of a cliff and look over into blue space below. The secluded orchard with its early crown of pink blushes, the serene shut-in valley screened from cold winds and cradled between the chalky highlands, weighed on her. She looked upwards through the dainty tracery of soft green and pink to the sky above, delicately blue with white clouds racing over it. There was air up there, free and untrammelled. Patricia sighed and then laughed at herself, for it was good, even here in the narrow orchard, life with its coming possibilities, its increasing riches. She was glad to be alone at that moment if only to share a thought with the poet who at this period held sway over her mind.

The previous evening had been one of great moment to her and she was joyfully thankful to find that it obscured and clouded no particle of the daily simple joy of her existence. She had claimed this day to herself, free from all new issues to prove this point, and her heart sang with content for what had been, was, and would be.

The orchard gate clicked, and looking through the intervening boughs and leaflets, she saw Christopher coming across the grass towards her with his even, swinging step.

In her rough grey dress she was as part of the rough tree herself. Her golden head and the delicate lovely colouring of her face rivalled the tree's darling blossoms, so Christopher thought when he reached her. He came straight to her through the maze of old and young trees and had the exquisite joy of seeing her flush with surprise and pleasure at sight of him. Here indeed she felt was the one addition to her day that she needed. She did not descend from her perch, and it was his hand which steadied her there when excitement imperilled her throne.

"To come down on us without warning like this!" she expostulated, smiling down at him. "Why, we might have had no leisure to see you or luncheon to give you! When did you actually come?"

"Half an hour and five minutes ago. I've seen Caesar and St. Michael, and I've had luncheon."

"And have you come to stay?"

"I don't know yet." He leant his arm on the bough where she sat, which was of exactly convenient height.

"The amount of leisure you seem to have on hand," said Patricia severely, "is outrageous, considering how hard the rest of the family work."

"Especially Nevil," laughed Christopher.

"Especially Nevil. We have not sat down to a meal with him for three weeks. He nearly walked on Max's puppy last week and he has forgotten Charlotte's existence except as a penwiper—she went in to him one morning with a message and came out with an ink smudge on her red dress—she said it was his pen—the dress is the same colour as the penwiper, so she may be right. He paid no attention to the message."

"Well, at present, if you take the trouble to go into the Rosery you will find Nevil lying by the fountain catching goldfish with Max. I do not think he remembered I'd been away."

"Oh, I am glad," cried Patricia, clapping her hands; "of course it's very nice of him to be so clever and write so beautifully, but it's much nicer when he's just a dear silly thing—and catches goldfish. But tell me about yourself now. Are you well? And have you been working hard? Why aren't you in Belgium, why have you come, and what are you going to do, and when are you going back?"

"Stop, I can't keep more than five questions in my head at once and I've answered several of yours already. The first is trivial; you have eyes. I have been working as usual; it's no use to explain how, you have no conception of work at all. I am not in Belgium because I am here in a better place. I am going to enjoy myself, I hope, and I shall go away when it pleases me."

"Indeed, Your Highness. You have not explained why you came."

"I think," said Christopher, considering hard and speaking with slow deliberation, "I think, only it is so preposterously silly, that I came to see you, or perhaps it was Caesar or Nevil if it were not Max."

Patricia laughed deliciously and leant forward, making pretence to box his ears. Christopher shook the bough in revenge till she cried pax, and peace supervened.

"Since you have evidently no business of your own to see to," she said severely, "it shall be my business to teach you to appreciate Robert Bridges."

"I don't like his name; who is he?" Christopher grumbled.

"He is a genius and you must sit at his feet and listen."

"Isn't it respectful to stand?"

She regarded him gravely with her head on one side. "True humility sits ill on you, I fear. You may stand if you take off your hat."

He flung it on the grass obediently.

"The Cliff Edge." "The Cliff Edge has a carpet ... of purple, gold, and green."

She read the little poem all through, her sweet, appreciative voice making music of the lines already melodious. Christopher wondered if the writer ever knew how beautiful his words could be made.

"Is that not lovely?" she asked when she finished, leaning forward so that her hand and the book rested for a moment on his arm.

Christopher nodded without moving.

"It makes me thirsty for the sea," she went on, "for sky, for space to move and breathe. Oh, Christopher, things here are either old or small. All the great and beautiful things are old, the glory of it, the house, the life, the very trees, old, old, old. And the rest is small, protected and shut in. I want to feel things that are young and free and great, as the sky and sea and the wind. I am thirsty sometimes to stand on the edge of the cliff and taste the free, free air from off the sea that has no one else's thoughts in it. Do you understand that?—the longing for something that does not belong to any part, to any one?"

"Yes, I understand. I feel it too, sometimes."

"I knew you did. You see, it's because neither of us belong here—to Marden—really. Oh, I don't mean it horridly. It's the dearest place and they are all the dearest people; but the life, the big thought of it all, isn't ours. Our people didn't help make it."

Christopher made no answer. He was idly flinging bits of bark into his hat. If he were but certain—oh, if he could but be certain she were right! He looked up at her at last.

There could be no room for the grey shadows of doubt any longer. She was right. He felt it as he looked and as the thought she suggested sank deeper into his mind. Was not he truly one with her in it? He, too, had been conscious of a Life and History here at Marden not his own, that exacted no obligations from him, but rather silently insisted on the freedom. Such freedom, mated to hers, was the last great boon he asked of life that had already given him so much. Still he hesitated for very fear of losing the joy of the hour that would be his and hers for eternity when he sealed it with the passionate words in his heart.

"I know just what you mean," he said, "it is no disloyalty to them to feel it—only loyalty to ourselves. As for the sea and all that, I will motor you down to Milford whenever you like."

"Oh, Christopher!" She clasped her hands with joy like a child. "Have you brought the new motor? What is it like?"

"It's a perfect love, Patricia. I drove it down from town to-day. Such a road, stones, ruts—and it behaved like an angel although weighted with an extra sixteen stone of colossal brutality—Peter Masters, Esquire, millionaire."

"Oh, why on earth did you bring him down here?"

"He did not ask permission. He just came—wanted to see St. Michael. Don't let's talk about him. Let's talk about ourselves. We are much more interesting."

"Egoist!"

"Doesn't the plural number cancel the egoism? But I really have something to tell you about myself. Two things, indeed, if you'll kindly listen."

"I will try to be polite. Proceed." She ensconced herself comfortably against the trunk of the tree, folded her hands in her lap and smiled down at him under her half-shut lids. He also moved his position a very little so that he could see her better.

"First, then, Patricia, I have actually done something in Belgium. The roads of which I have dreamed are not quite such fantastic fancies now as they were a year ago."

She sat erect at once, alert and brimming over with interest.

"Oh, Christopher!"

"It is not done yet," he went on slowly, "but it is on the way to be done. It means that all the roads here, and the roads all over the world, will one day be made easy to travel upon. It means that mud, dirt and noise will be evils of the past, and they will be roads that will last down the ages." He stopped with a little catch in his breath and looked at her half ashamed, half pleadingly.

But Patricia was gazing past him through a gap in the trees at a white flinty road that struggled up to the distant downs. "Yes," she said very softly, as if fearing to quench a vision she saw there, "yes, that is a great and a good thing, and like you."

"Thank you," he answered laughing—the spell of their mutual earnestness pressed him too sorely.

"Don't laugh," she returned swiftly with a frown; "it is not the goodness that's like you. It's a sort of strongness about it—something to hold on to for all time." She stopped abruptly, looking at him gravely.

This time he did not laugh, but he put one hand on hers, and his was shaking.

"Christopher," she said coaxingly, "will you really take me down to the sea when I like?"

"Whenever you like."

"Then do it this afternoon. Now, at once," she cried pleadingly, and seeing his face of amazement, added, "you promised, Christopher."

"Of course. I'll do it; but why not to-morrow, when we can have a long day?"

"Because—because to-day is all my own," she said softly, "and to-morrow isn't. Christopher, I did not mean to tell anyone to-day, but I must tell you, I am going to marry Geoffry,"—she flushed rosy red, but he did not see it—"it was last night—he wanted to see Nevil at once, but I wouldn't let him. I wanted this day to myself. It was nice of you to come and make it complete."

His hand still held hers, but it was still and motionless now. She stroked it softly. Christopher drew it gently away.

"You ought to wish me happiness or something, ought you not?" she said.

"I do, Patricia," he said, looking up at her.

He wanted to say more; self-preservation demanded it, and again demanded silence. Their voices seemed to him far away, speaking in some fairy orchard where he was not. He could barely hear them.

"You'll pretend not to know anything about it till to-morrow, won't you?" she pleaded. "Don't spoil my day. It isn't that it won't be perfectly lovely to be engaged, but the past has been, lovely too, and I want to keep it a tiny bit longer. You'll help me, won't you?"

"Yes, I'll help you."

If he could but keep to-day forever shut in his heart with her, though life crumbled to ruins about them! But the invincible hours were ranged against him, and would claim it their own.

"And you'll take me to the sea?"

"Yes, if you come at once."

She descended from her perch with his help. She did not know his hands felt numb and dead as he held and released her.

"You haven't told me the second thing about yourself," she remarked, brushing the bark and lichen from her dress.

"It will keep," he said quietly.

And they went out of the orchard.



CHAPTER XVIII

Whatever may have been the pressing business that caused Peter Masters to seek his cousin's company in so speedy a manner, the immediate necessity of it seemed to have evaporated on the journey. He sat talking of various things to Aymer and Charles Aston, but uttered nothing as to the reason of his visit, and Mr. Aston, with his eye on Aymer, chafed a little and found it hard to maintain his usual serenity. Aymer, on the contrary, seemed more deliberate and placid than usual; there was a slowness in his speech, and an unusual willingness to leave the conversation in his visitor's hands as if he mistrusted his own powers to keep it in desirable channels. He appeared to have suddenly abdicated his position on the objective positive side of life and to have become a mere passive instrument of the hour, subjective and unresisting.

It was his father who was ready, armed against fate, alert, watchful to ward off all that might harm or distress his eldest son. Peter spoke of their exodus from London, their sojourn in the country, told them anecdotes of big deals, and was, in his big, burly, shrewd way, amusing and less ruthlessly tactless than usual. He had long ago given up all hope of interesting Aymer in a financial career, but he nevertheless retained a curiously respectful belief in his cousin's mental powers.

"By the way," he said presently, "I've not bought a car yet. That boy of yours seems to know something about them. Do you think he could be trusted to choose one for me?"

"Perfectly."

Aymer's tone was completely impartial, and Peter ruminated over his next remark a moment.

"You still mean him to stick to his Road Engineering?"

"He is perfectly free to do as he likes."

Charles Aston put in a word.

"He is twenty-two now, and he knows his own mind a good deal better than most boys of that age. He seems bent on carrying out his Road scheme, and there seems no reason why he should not." He pushed over a box of cigars to his visitor.

"No, exactly. No reason at all." Peter selected a cigar carefully. "I expect you find it very interesting watching how he turns out, don't you, Aymer?"

"It is not uninteresting."

"You've not seen Nevil yet," suggested Mr. Aston. "He is just out of a spell of work; come out in the garden and find him while you smoke."

"Well, perhaps we might, if you don't mind being left, Aymer?" Peter's voice was full of kindly interest. To him the great catastrophe was ever a new and awful thing, and Aymer an invalid to be considered and treated with such attention as he knew how.

"Not in the least," said Aymer politely, marvelling how exactly his father had gauged the limits of his endurance. When the heavy curtained door had shut out voices and footsteps and only the stillness of the room was with him the forced passivity slipped from Aymer like a mask, and his was again the face of a fighter, of one still fighting against fearful odds.

He lay with clenched hands and rigid face, and great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, for that passive indifference towards what had become a matter of life and death to him was the fruit of a victory that had to be won again and again each time his perilous position was assailed by the appearance of Peter Masters.

His very existence had become so bound up in the life of the boy he had taken as his own that the smallest fraying of the cord which bound them together was a thought of new pain. The passionate, fiercely jealous nature that had lain dormant so long had gathered strength from silence and clamoured with imperious insistence on its right, to love, to whole allegiance, to undisputed sway over Christopher.

What right could this man, Christopher's father though he were, in the flesh, show beside his, Aymer Aston's? Every instinct rose in indignant rebellion against the fiat of his own conscience.

For before his deep love was awake to confuse his judgment he had declared that if he might only be permitted to bring Elizabeth Masters's son through the perilous passage of boyhood, he would never stand between Christopher and what, after all, was his right due, and in the eyes of the world, his wonderful fortune. Elizabeth of the brave heart and uncompromising creed had thought otherwise of this fortune, as did Charles Aston and Aymer himself. The first had imperilled her beloved child's bodily welfare to save him from what she thought an evil thing, and the Astons, father and son, had bid defiance to their hitherto straightforward policy and followed expediency instead of open dealing, but there Aymer stopped.

The decision he had made must be adhered to at all costs. It mattered nothing he had not been in a position to count the cost ten years ago. He at least could not discount his own word. If Fate drew Christopher to the side of his unknown father, Aymer must put out no hand to intervene.

But the cost of it—the cost!—He put his shaking hands over his face, trying to consider the position reasonably.

Even if Peter Masters learnt the truth and claimed

Christopher, Christopher was of age and must act for himself, and Aymer could not doubt his action. His misery lay in no suspicion of Christopher's loyal love, but in his own unconquerable, wildly jealous desire to stand alone in the post of honour, of true fatherhood to the son of the woman he had loved to such disastrous end. And behind that lay the bitter, unquenchable resentment that, pretend as he would, Christopher was not his son, not even of unknown parentage, but in actual fact the son of the man who had unknowingly robbed him of love, and whom he had all his life alternately hated and despised.

It was some subtle knowledge of what was passing in that still room that made Charles Aston a shade less kindly, a little more alert than usual to hidden meanings, and it was the sight of Aymer's apparent passivity in the face of all that threatened him, that brought him to the mind to fight every inch of ground before he put into the hands of Peter Masters the tangled clue of the story that he alone knew in all its completeness.

The suspicion that had gripped Peter Masters on the journey down was slowly stiffening into a certainty, but he was still undecided in his mind as to the line of action he would take. If these people with their ultra-heroic code of honour had fooled him, and forestalled him in this matter of his son with deliberate intent to frustrate any advances he might make, it would go hard with them in the end, cousins or no cousins. Such was his first thought; but he had yet to prove they were not simply waiting for a sign to deliver back his son to him, in which case Peter was not unprepared to be grateful, for his heart—and he had one—had gone out to the plucky, determined young man who had lied so bravely. Peter determined, therefore, he would give Charles Aston a chance and see what happened. In a blindly, inarticulate way he felt it was impossible to play with Aymer, he was even conscious it was a matter of great moment to him, though he could not in any manner see why it was so.

"Nevil will survive if we put him off a little longer," said Peter as they crossed the hall, "I want to see you on a private matter, Cousin Charles."

Mr. Aston led the way without a word to his own room. He made no doubt as to what the matter was. Perhaps the shadow of the expected interview had lain too heavily on him of late to leave room for suspicion of other affairs.

It was a long, cheerful room, lined with books, and the furniture was solid and shabby with long service. There was an indefinite atmosphere of peace and repose about it, of leisured days haunted by no grey thoughts, very typical of the owner. The window stood open, though a fire burned clearly on the plain brick hearth, beneath a big hooded chimney-piece.

Mr. Aston indicated a big easy chair to his visitor and seated himself at his writing table, from whence he could see, behind Peter, on the far wall, a portrait of Aymer painted in the pride of his life and youth, so wonderfully like even now in its strong colour and forcible power, and so full of subtle differences and fine distinctions.

"I don't know even if you'll listen to me," began Peter, who knew very well Charles Aston would refuse to listen to no man; "fifteen years ago you told me you'd said your last word on the subject."

"I beg your pardon, Peter, it was you who said the subject was closed between us."

"Ah, yes. So I did. May I reopen it?"

"If it can serve any good purpose, but you know my opinions."

"I thought perhaps they might have altered with the changing years," said Peter blandly.

"Not one bit, I assure you."

"Really. It never strikes you that I was justified in attending to Elizabeth's very plainly expressed wishes, or that it might be a happy thing for the boy that I did so."

"The question between us," said his cousin gently, "was whether you were justified in abandoning them, not whether it was advantageous to them or not."

"I would point out in passing, Cousin Charles, that Elizabeth abandoned me, but we will let that be. My reason for opening the subject at all is not a question of justification." He puffed away slowly at his cigar for a minute and then went on in an even, unemotional voice. "The fact is something rather strange has happened. For twenty years I have believed I knew the exact whereabouts of Elizabeth and my son. I had a good reason for the belief. One man only shared this supposititious knowledge with me." His hearer seemed about to speak, but desisted and looked away from Peter out of the window. Not a movement, a sign, a breath, escaped those hard blue eyes, and Charles Aston knew it. It did not render him nervous or even indignant, but he was a trifle more dignified, more obviously determined to be courteous at any cost.

"That boy and his mother were living at Liverpool," went on Peter calmly. "He was employed in a big shipping firm in a very minor capacity. He was killed in the great explosion in the dock last week."

He spoke as calmly as if he were saying his supposed son had lost his post or had gone for a holiday.

Charles Aston gave a sudden movement and turned a shocked face towards the speaker.

"Terrible!" he said, "I wonder how the shareholders in that company feel? Did you see the verdict?"

Peter waved his hand. "Yes, yes. Juries lose their heads in these cases. But to continue. I went down to Liverpool at once before the funeral, you understand." He paused. "I was naturally much disturbed and horrified, and then—well, the boy wasn't my son, after all."

"Not your son?" echoed Charles Aston slowly.

"No, not my son." There was a tinge of impatience in his voice. "I should not have known, but the mother was there. She went in as I came out."

"His mother was alive?"

"Yes. She was not Elizabeth."

His cousin turned to him, indignation blazing in his eyes. "For twenty years, Peter, you believed you knew your wife's whereabouts, you knew she was in more or less a state of poverty, and you made no attempt to see her face to face? You accepted the story of another with no attempt to personally prove the truth yourself?"

"I had good reason to believe it," returned Peter sulkily. "She would have let me know if she were in want. I had told her she could come back when she had had enough of it."

"And this poor woman, whose son was killed. What of her?"

"I don't know anything about her except she wasn't Elizabeth."

"You had believed her so for twenty years."

"I had made a mistake. She knew nothing about that. I took good care she should not. There was no doubt about her being the boy's mother, and no doubt she was not Elizabeth. She had no claim on me."

"No claim!" Charles Aston stood up and faced him, "not even the claim of the widow—her one son dead. No claim, when for all those years those two items of humanity represented in your perverse mind the two people nearest—I won't say dearest—to you. No claim!" He stopped and walked away to the window.

Peter smiled tolerantly. He enjoyed making this kind, generous man flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible, but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in his own affairs to get much satisfaction from it.

"Well, well, don't let us argue about it. We don't think alike in these matters. The point I want to consult you about is not my susceptibility to sentiment, but the chances of my picking up a clue twenty years old."

"I should say they were hardly worth considering." He spoke deliberately, turning from the window to resume his place by the table. The fight had begun; they had crossed blades at last.

"There is a very good detective called Chance and a better one called Luck."

"You have secured their services?"

"I am not certain yet. Can you help me?"

He made the appeal with calculated directness, knowing his man and his aversion to evasion, but if he expected him to hesitate he was disappointed.

"No, I can do nothing. I tried for five years to bring you to some sense of your responsibility in this matter. You were not frank with me then, it seems. I can do nothing now."

"And have lost all interest in it, I suppose?"

"No. It is your interest that rises and falls with the occasion, but I decline to have anything to do with it. If—as I do not believe—Elizabeth is still alive she and your son have done without your help for twenty years and can do without it still."

"They have doubtless plenty of friends."

"Let us hope so. What was the name of the Liverpool woman?"

"Priestly. What does it matter? The question is, I must find my son somehow, for I must have an heir."

"Adopt one."

"As did Aymer?" He shot a questioning glance at him. "It's such a risk. I might not be so lucky. Sons like Christopher are not to be had for nothing."

"No, they are not," said Charles Aston drily. "They are the result of years of love and patience, of generous tolerance, of unquenchable courage. They bring days of joy which must be paid for with hours of anxiety and nights of pain. Were you prepared to give your son this, even if you had taken him to you as a boy?"

Peter waved his big hand again. "I quite admit all that is needed to produce men of your pattern, Cousin Charles, and I have the profoundest admiration for the result; but I am not ambitious; I should be content to produce the ordinary successful man."

"I think Christopher will score a success."

"Yes, in spite of you both, by reason of his practical, determined, hard-headed nature which he probably inherits from his father, eh?"

"You are probably right. I am not in a position to say."

"You did not know his parents?"

Charles Aston pushed back his chair and looked beyond Peter to the portrait of Aymer. They must come to close quarters or he would give out, and suddenly it came to him that he must adhere to his universal rule, must give the better side of the man's nature a chance before he openly defied him. The decision was made quite quickly. Peter only recognised a slight pause. "You seem interested in Christopher," Mr. Aston said slowly. "I will tell you what there is to know. About eleven years ago Aymer became possessed of a passionate desire to have a boy to bring up, since he might not have one of his own. In hunting for a suitable one I stumbled on the son of someone I had known who had fallen on very evil days." He stopped a moment. Peter took out another cigar and lit it. "On very evil days," repeated the other. "The boy was left at a country workhouse in this county as it happened. I knew enough of his paternity to know that he was a suitable subject for Aymer to father. I have never regretted what I did. The boy has become the mainspring of Aymer's life; he lives again in him. All that has been denied him, he finds in Christopher's career; all he cannot give the world he has given to this boy, this son of his heart and soul. No father could love more, could suffer more. And Christopher is repaying him. He has known no father but Aymer, no authority but his, no conflicting claim. I pray God daily that neither now nor in the future shall any shadow fall between these two to cancel by one solitary item Christopher's obligation to his adopted father. Perhaps I am selfish over it, but anyway, Aymer is my son, and I understand how it is with him."

There was a silence in the room. Peter puffed vehemently and the clouds of blue-grey smoke circling round him obscured the heavy features from his cousin when his eyes left the picture to look at him.

"Yes, yes, I see. Quite so," said a voice from the smoke at last, and slowly the strong, bland expressionless face emerged clearly from the halo, "but I am no further on my way towards my son. And who's to have the money if I don't find him? Will you?"

"Heaven forbid!—and Nature! Peter, I'm sixty and you are fifty-four."

"Will Nevil's boy?"

"We have enough. We should count it a misfortune. Leave it in charities."

"And suppose he discovers some day who he is, and wanted it?"

"Hardly likely after so long."

"Quite likely. Shall I leave it to Christopher?"

It was the last thrust, and it told. There was quite a long silence. Charles longed passionately to refuse, but even he dared not. The issue was too great. "I cannot dictate to you in the matter," he said at length, "but I do not think Christopher would appreciate it."

"Then I must hope to find a Christopher of my own," returned Peter, rising; "let us meanwhile find Nevil."

The duel was over and apparently the result was as undetermined as ever. The only satisfaction poor Charles Aston derived was from the fact that Peter was unusually gentle and tactful to Aymer that afternoon. He seemed in no hurry to go, urged as excuse he wanted to consult Christopher about a motor, but when they sent to find that young gentleman, they discovered he and Patricia and the motor were missing.



CHAPTER XIX

It seemed to Christopher as he overhauled his long-suffering motor preparatory to the new run, that a great gap of innumerable grey days stretched between him and the moment he brought the car to a standstill before the doors of the house, that had appeared to him to be a Temple of Promise. It was in fact barely an hour and a half and the greater part of that time had been occupied with lunch and a hasty interview with Aymer. That shorter interlude in the orchard just over, had already blotted out a golden landscape with a driving mist that obscured all true proportion of time or space. He longed greatly, with a sense of strange fatigue, to be sitting at Caesar's side and to find the restless discomfort evaporate as they talked, even as his boyish troubles had melted in that companionship. That must come later: for the present Fate—or Patricia—made a demand on him to which he was bound to answer. Where a weaker nature would have said "impossible," he simply found an ordinary action rendered difficult by his own private view of it, therefore it behooved him to close the shutters on that outlook if he could, and ignore the difficulty.

Renata, who came out with Patricia, protested a little indignantly at the latter's exaction.

"It is so inconsiderate of Patricia, just as you have had such a journey. Why do you give in to her, Christopher?"

"To-day is as good as any day," he answered her, "perhaps the visitor will have gone when we return."

"Oh, I hope so," said Renata fervently, and then blushed at her own inhospitality. "I mean, Caesar would rather have you to himself, I am sure."

"And I would rather have Caesar unaccompanied. So there is some use in Patricia's fancy."

"Of course," put in that young lady, "there always is. Please do not waste precious time talking. Tell me where I am to sit, Christopher."

"I'll take every care of her," said Christopher, looking at Renata, "we'll be back in time for dinner. Be kind and get rid of Mr. Masters by then."

"Like a dear little angel," concluded Patricia, kissing her; "think how he bores Nevil, and don't be hospitable."

Christopher settled her in the seat beside him, tucked her in with rugs, put up the front screen and started.

For a few short minutes the joy of having her there beside him, his sole charge for some golden hours to come, his to carry in a mad rush if he would to the ends of the earth, obliterated for a moment the bewildering mist.

He drove for some way in silence. Patricia was too much absorbed in the pleasures of swift motion to talk. Her first words, however, shut down the mists on him again.

"Geoffry must have a car," she declared. "He must get one just like this."

"I thought Geoffry was to be left behind this afternoon?"

"Oh, I suppose he was. I don't believe you are a bit pleased about it really, Christopher."

He clutched at the truth as a plank of safety.

"Well, you can't expect me to be glad to lose your company, can you? I shall never make a golfer now."

She laughed at that and recommended a course at St. Andrew's under a professional, which proposal he treated with scorn, but after a short silence he said in a different voice:

"Don't think I'm not glad at anything that makes you happy, Patricia. Geoffry's a real good sort and—here's a town—you must not speak to the man at the wheel."

Patricia was obedient. She sank into a reverie in which, despite her own determination, Geoffry played a long part. It was characteristic of her exact attitude towards her accepted lover that it was the immediate future in which he figured most clearly. Her thoughts hovered round the pleasant summer to come with the distant excitement of a wedding to crown it. She never considered, or only in the most cursory way, the long years ahead, the daily companionship with the man she had chosen. She was honestly attached to Geoffry. She believed she was in love with him, whereas, as is far more often the case than the young suppose, she was in love with the love that had come to her in the glory of the spring, offered by familiar hands that were dear because of what they held for her.

So they drove through the glowing afternoon, and the line of white road before them appeared to Christopher as a track dividing past and future, the thin edge of the passing minutes. They spoke no more, however, on the forbidden subject. Christopher presently explained to her the visible mechanism of the car and on a stretch of clear road let her put her hands on the wheel beneath his own and feel the joy of fictitious control. Before the sun quenched itself in the sea they stood on the Cliff Edge and looked out across the shining waters into the great space, where a thought-laden air renews itself, reforming, cancelling and creating in the crucible of Life. They clambered down from the lip of the cliff on to a jutting-out shelf of rock, screened with gorse, where the few feet of gravel bank behind them shut out all signs of habitation.

Patricia sat with her hands clasped round her knees drawing slow, deep draughts of the cool air, her eyes on the immense free space, and she spoke not at all with her lips, yet Christopher, lying at her feet, caught her thoughts as they came and went with strange certainty and stranger heartache. He picked a handful of golden gorse petals and pressed the sweet blossoms to his face: ever after their scent was to mean for him that place and rapture of that hour, in which was borne to him the certainty of his right to her, and the knowledge of the surrender he was making in each silent minute. For she was his now, if he told her, if he broke faith, if he claimed the right that was his.

Now in this golden hour he would win if he spoke, sweeping aside the shadowy intervening form of the other with the relentless persistent truth of the faith that was in him, a faith that had no ground in personal vanity or individual pride, but was only the recognition of a great Fact that lay outside and beyond them both, that named Patricia forever his in a world where the Real is disentangled from the Appearance.

Was life to consist, for him, in a relinquishing of his own rights in conformity to the Law of Appearance? Was it but a cowardly fear of convention that held him back from claiming her now on the verge of the world? Or was it a deeper, half-understood trust of the Great Realities of Life, a knowledge that faith, integrity, and honour are no conventions, but belong to Real World of Truth, and that he could snatch no joy of life over their trampled forms? He tried dimly to understand these things, to gauge the nature of the forces that controlled him, but he never doubted what force would claim his obedience. It was already habitual to him by reason of training and instinct to set such Laws of Life as he recognised before his own will. But that will was very clamorous this evening as he pressed the hot yellow whin-flowers to his face drinking their fragrance into his thirsty soul.

When he raised his eyes he looked out at sea and sky and avoided the dear sweet face above him. She still sat smiling out into the serene space, watching as it were the random thoughts of her subconscious self floating in those ethereal realms. It was almost too great a happiness for peace, the fair world, the comprehending companion, who understood without the clumsy medium of words, and the love awaiting her on the morrow. She did not wish for Geoffry's presence now, she was perfectly content that he stood in the beautiful morrow, that he was bringing her a good and precious crown to the golden days of her youth.

She sighed out of pure joy and so broke the spell of the golden and blue-cloaked silence which had reigned. Without moving she gathered a handful of whin blooms and scattered them over the brown head at her feet, a baptism of golden fire. He shook them off and looked up at her, laughing.

"Asleep, I believe, Christopher, you lazy person. What were you dreaming about?"

"Bees, heather and honey," he murmured, surreptitiously gathering up a handful of the golden rain she had tossed him. "Have you had your breath of freedom, Patricia—are you ready for tea and buttered toast?"

"And honey, you provoking materialist," she insisted.

"Honey is stolen property—I always feel a consort of thieves when I eat it."

"Then I'll eat it and you can shut your eyes. Christopher, suppose the car goes wrong on the way home?"

He scoffed at that, but while she ate her honey he made an exhaustive inspection of it.

When the sun dropped out of sight a shivering wind sprang up and the blue sky drew a grey cloak over itself. Christopher wrapped his companion in a fur coat and tucked her in anxiously.

She had become restless and dissatisfied as if the sun had taken her joy to rest with him, or as if the thoughts gathered from space found an unready lodgment in her mind. Christopher made some effort to talk on indifferent subjects, but she answered with strange brevity or not at all, once with such impatience that he glanced quickly at her hands and saw they were hidden by the long sleeves of his big coat she wore.

Presently she said abruptly:

"We ought not to have stayed so long. Why did you go to sleep?"

"I didn't," he retorted, amazed at the accusation.

"Then you ought to have talked."

"I thought we were superior to such conventions."

"That is an excuse for sheer laziness on your part. And even if you are superior," she added, inconsequently, "I am not. What were you thinking about?"

"Shall I tell you of what you were thinking?"

"You can't."

"Out in the great space you saw all the future days weaving for you a dress of blue and gold, of hopes and fulfilment. You saw how they smiled at you, you were glad of the love they bore you, the good they were bringing you. You felt in your own soul how you belonged to them, you were a part of all this dear living world."

"Don't, don't," she cried, half under her breath.

"Isn't it true?" he insisted.

"You have no business, no right to know. Christopher, how dare you." Her face flushed with inward emotion, with some fierce resentment that laid hold of her senses without reason and dragged fear in its wake.

"I'm sorry," he said humbly. "I've often done it before and you never minded."

"It's quite different now. It's unbearable. I don't like it any more, I hate it. Do you hear, Christopher?"

"Yes. It was unpardonable. I am sorry, Patricia, I won't do it again."

"You won't try to understand me like that? Promise," she urged.

"I didn't try then. I only knew. I promise I won't tell you again."

"That's not enough," she persisted, twisting her fingers under cover of the long sleeves. "You mustn't know. You must not be able to do it. I won't bear it. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Then promise."

"I've promised all I can. I certainly won't try to know. I can't help it involuntarily."

"You must. I insist—Christopher, quick."

They were running at a great pace along a straight level piece of road with high banks on either side, and by the roadside at regular intervals were piles of broken granite. Christopher's attention was fixed on a distant speck that might be a danger-signal and he did not answer her or notice the nearer signal of danger in her white face.

She was in the grip of her old wild passion again, on fire with her need of assurance, and in a gust of anger she caught at the wheel that seemed to claim his mind. The car swerved violently, jolted up on to the turf, bumped madly along at a dangerous tilt, swerved back into the road two feet clear of a grey pile of stone. Only then did Christopher know her fingers were gripped between his hands and the steel wheel. He brought the car to a standstill and her released hand fell white and numb to her side. She neither spoke nor moved, but gazed before her, oblivious even of her crushed fingers.

There was a running brook the other side of the hedge and a convenient gate. He soaked his handkerchief in it, came back to her and put the numbed hand on the cool linen. His grip had been like iron and the averted disaster so near as to be hardly passed from his senses, yet he felt sick and ashamed at this almost trifling price they had to pay. He felt each bruised finger carefully and bound them up as best he could, and only then did he speak.

"I'm fearfully sorry, Patricia, I didn't know."

She looked vaguely at the white bound hand.

"My fingers? Oh, I'm glad. You shouldn't have tied them up."

He paid no heed, but having examined the car, climbed back to his place.

"We must go on," he remarked, "so it's no use asking you if you are too frightened, Patricia."

"You might put me out on the roadside," she suggested dully.

To that, too, he paid no heed and they started again.

The miles slipped by in unbroken silence. It was not till they were nearly home that Christopher spoke.

"I thought that was all quite gone, Patricia."

"So did I," she returned wearily. "It's ages since I was so stupid. It's generally all right if you are there."

"But I'm not always there anyhow."

"I don't mean there really. I just shut my eyes and pretend you are and hold on. But just now I waited for you to do something. I forgot you were driving."

"You mustn't rely on me to stop you now," he insisted, with new gravity.

"Oh, yes, I do. It's always you if I stop in time; either you actually, or thinking of you. Don't talk about it, Christopher dear, it was too horrible."

She did not explain if she meant the danger or the cause, but he obeyed and said no more. A terrible fear clamoured at his heart. Did Geoffry Leverson know or did he not? and if he knew, would he even understand? He tried to tell himself that if he could manage her, then another, and that her acknowledged lover, could do so too, but he knew this was false reasoning. Such power as he had over her lay in his recognition that the irresistible inheritance was not an integral part of Patricia, but was an exotic growth, foisted upon her by the ill-understood laws of paternity, and finding no natural soil in her pure self—something indeed, of a lower nature, that she must and could override. He could have curbed it in the brief flash just over, he knew, had his attention been free. It had died as it had come and the penalty of the crushed fingers hurt him as unwarrantable, combined with the peril they had run.

It was a fresh addition of cloud to the dimmed day to find Peter Masters had not departed, but was staying the night.



CHAPTER XX

Aymer gazed out of the open window at Christopher and Peter Masters as they walked to and fro on the terrace. He knew the subject they were discussing, and he was already sure how it would end. But what were the real issues involved he could not determine, and he was impotent, by reason of his vow and will, to influence them. He could only lie still and watch, tortured by jealous fear and the physical helplessness that forbade him the one relief of movement for which his soul craved. The patience the long years had schooled him into was slipping away, and the elementary forces of his nature reigned in its stead.

Under the overmastering impulse towards action he made a futile effort to sit up that he might better follow the movements of the two outside. It was a pathetic failure, and he swore fiercely as he fell back and found his father's arms round him.

"Aymer, if you are going to be so childish, I shall tell Christopher not to go."

"No. I'm a fool, but I won't have him know it. He must go if he will."

"There is nothing to fear if he does. What is wrong with you?"

"I want to go back to town, I'm tired of this."

"You are far better here than in town," said his father uneasily.

"I'm well enough anywhere."

"I shall have to tell Christopher not to go."

"No." The tone was sharply negative again, and after a moment's silence Aymer said in a low, grudging voice, "You've always helped before; are you going to desert me now?"

For answer his father got up and pushed the big sliding sofa away from the window.

"Very well, then behave yourself better, Aymer, and don't ford a stream before you come to it. You've got to listen to Penruddock's speech." He folded back the Times and began to read.

When Christopher came back a little later he saw no sign of the trouble. Perhaps he was a little too much engrossed in his own perplexities to be as observant as usual.

"Caesar, do you think it's a shabby thing to stay with a man you don't like?"

"Are you going?"

"I think so. I want to see how he does it."

"Does what?"

"Makes his money. Does it seem shabby to you?"

"You can't know if you like him or not. You know nothing about him."

"I shall be back at the end of the week. You don't mind my going, Caesar? I'd rather go before I settle down."

"Another week's peace," returned Caesar, indifferently. "The truth is, you're in a scrape and putting off confession, young man."

Christopher laughed at him.

They were to leave early next morning, so Peter Masters bade Aymer good-bye that night. He apologised clumsily for taking Christopher away so soon after his long absence.

"It's the only free week I've got for months, and I want to study your handiwork, Aymer."

"Christopher has points. I don't know how many score to me," returned his cousin with steadily forced indifference.

"Well, you've taken more trouble over him than most fathers would do."

"Are you an expert?"

Peter laughed grimly and stood looking at Aymer with his chin in his hand, a curiously characteristic attitude of doubt with him.

"You won't be overpleased when he wants to marry, which he is sure to do just when he's become useful to you."

For the first time in his life Peter Masters recognised the harassed soul of a man as it leapt to sight, and saw the shadow of pain conquer a fierce will. The revelation struck him dumb, for incongruously and unreasonably there flashed before his mind a memory of this face with twenty years wiped out. He went slowly away carrying with him a vivid impression and new knowledge.

It was a new experience to him. He knew something of men's minds, but of their emotions and the passions of their souls he was no judge. He puzzled over the meaning of what he had seen as he faced Christopher in the train next day, studying him with a disconcerting gaze. Could Aymer possibly love the boy to the verge of jealousy? It seemed so incredible and absurd. Yet what other interpretation could he place on that look he had surprised? Charles Aston's words, which had not been without effect, paled before this self-revelation. It annoyed him greatly that the disturbing vision should intrude itself between him and the decision he was endeavouring to make, for the better termination of which he was carrying Christopher northward with him.

Christopher, on his part, was chiefly occupied in considering the distracting fact of his own yielding to the wishes of a man he disliked as sincerely as he did Mr. Aston's cousin. Peter Masters was taking him with him in precisely the same manner he had made Christopher convey him to Marden. It was quite useless to pretend he was going of his own will; refusal had, in an unaccountable way, seemed impossible. To save his pride he tried to believe he was influenced by a desire to get away from Marden until the first excitement over Patricia's engagement had died away, yet in his heart he knew that though that and other considerations had joined forces with the millionaire's mandate, yet in any case he would have had to bow to the will of the man who admitted no possibility of refusal. He had been unprepared and unready twice over: in the matter of the journey from London and in the stranger matter of this present journey. Christopher determined the third time he would be on guard, that in all events, reason should have her say in the case.

They were going direct to Stormly, which was midway between Birmingham and the Stormly mines, from which the fortunes of the family had first been dug. Stormly Park was Peter's only permanent residence, though much of his time was spent in hotels and travelling. The house, begun by his father, had expanded with the fortunes of the son. It stood remote from town or village. It was neither a palace nor a glorified villa, but just a substantial house, with an unprepossessing exterior, and all the marvels of modern luxury within. The short private railway by which it was approaching ran through an ugly tract of country terminating beneath a high belt of trees that shut off the western sun and were flanked by granite walls.

On the platform of the minute station two porters in private uniform received them.

"I generally walk up if I'm not in a hurry," said Peter Masters abruptly.

He had not spoken since they left Birmingham, where a packet of letters had been brought him, to which he gave his undivided attention. With a curt nod to the men, with whom he exchanged no word at all, he led the way from the siding across a black, gritty road and unlocking a door in the wall ushered Christopher into Stormly Park.

The belt of trees was planted on a ridge of ground that sloped towards the road and formed a second barrier between the world without and the world within. When they had crossed the ridge and looked down on the Park itself Christopher gave a gasp of astonishment. It stretched out before him in the sunset light a wide expanse of green land, with stately clumps of trees and long vistas of avenues that led nowhere. It was like some jewel in the wide circling belt of trees. It was so strange a contrast to the sordid country without, that the effect was amazing. Christopher looked round involuntarily to see by what passage he had passed from that unpleasing world to this sunkissed land of beauty.

Peter Masters saw the effect produced and his lips twitched with a little smile of pleasure.

"My grandfather planted the place," he said. "He understood those things. I don't. But it's pretty. My mother, Evelyn Aston, you know, used to always travel by night if she could, she disliked the country round so much."

"It is rather a striking contrast," Christopher agreed.

They passed through a clump of chestnuts just breaking into leaf.

"There is coal here," said Peter. "It will all have to go some day. I make no additions now."

They came suddenly on the house, which was built of grey pointed stone, its low-angle slate roof hidden behind a high balustrading. The centre part was evidently the original house and long curved wings had been extended on either side. There was no sign of life about the place, nor did it carry the placid sense of repose that haunts old houses. Stormly Park had an air of waiting; a certain grim expectation lurked behind the over-mantled windows and closed doors. It was as if it watched for the fate foreshadowed in its owner's words. Even the glorious sunlight pouring over it failed to give it a sense of warm living life.

It filled Christopher with curiosity and a desire to explore the grey fastness and trim level lawns beyond. Some living eyes watched, however, for the front door swung open as they approached and two footmen came out. Christopher again noted Peter Masters did not speak to them or appear to notice their presence. On the steps he paused, and stood aside.

"Go in," he said when his visitor hesitated.

Christopher obeyed.

The interior was almost as great a contrast to the exterior as the Park was to the surrounding country. It was rich with colour and warmth and comfort.

They were met by a thin, straightened-looking individual, who murmured a greeting to which Peter Masters paid no attention.

He turned to Christopher.

"This is Mr. Dreket, my secretary. Dreket, show Mr. ——" for an imperceptible moment he paused—"Mr. Aston his room and explain the ways of the place to him. I've some letters to see to."

He turned aside down a long corridor. Christopher and the secretary looked at each other.

"I shan't be sorry for a wash and brush up," said Christopher, smiling.

The other gave a little sigh, expressive more of relief than fatigue, and led the way upstairs. As they went up the wide marble steps Mr. Masters reappeared and stood for a moment in the shadow of an arch watching the dark, erect young head till it was out of sight, then he retraced his steps and disappeared in his own room.

Christopher did not see him again till dinner-time. The two dined together at a small table that was an oasis in a desert of space. The room was hung with modern pictures set in unpolished wood panelling. Peter vaguely apologised for them to one accustomed to the company of the masterpieces of the dead.

"I'm no judge. I should be taken in if I bought old ones," he said. "So I buy new, provided they are by possible men. They may be worth something, some day, eh?"

"They are very good to look at now," Christopher answered, a little shyly, looking at a vast sea-scape which seemed to cool the room with a fresh breeze.

"You Astons would have beaten me anyhow," pursued Peter. "I've got nothing old: but the new's the best of its kind."

Christopher found this was true. Everything in the house was modern. There was no reproduction, no imitation. It was all solidly and emphatically modern: glass, china, furniture, books, pictures, the silk hangings, the white statuary in the orangery: all modern. There was nothing poor or mean or artistically bad, but the whole gave an impression of life yet to be lived, an incompleteness that was baffling in its obscurity.

Peter Masters talked much of events, of material things, of himself, but never of mankind in general. He spoke of no friends, or neighbours: he appeared to be served by machines, to stand alone in life, unconscious of his isolation. They played billiards in the evening and the host had an easy victory, and gave Christopher a practical lesson in the one game he had found time to master.

"I've work to do. Breakfast to-morrow at 8 sharp. You are going to Birmingham with me."

No question about it or pretence of asking his visitor's wishes. Christopher did not resent that, but he resented his growing inability to resist. He flung open the windows of his room and looked out. Eastward there was a glow in the sky over the great sleepless city: northward a still nearer glow from a foundry, he thought, but westward the parkland was silvered with moonlight and black with shadows, which under the groups of chestnuts seemed like moving shapes.

He leant out far and the cold night air shivered by. That was familiar and good to feel, but the glare northward caught his eyes again, and held him fascinated. It rose and fell, now blushing softly against a velvet sky, now flaring angrily to heaven. It seemed to quiver with voices that were harsh and threatening. It filled Christopher's heart with unreasonable horror against which he struggled in vain, as with the dim terror of a stranger. At last he closed the window and shut it out.

"I don't like it," said Christopher half aloud. "It's all right, it's only a foundry, but I hate it."

With that he went to bed and in the dark the dance of the fires flickered before his eyes.

The next few days were spent in gathering fresh impressions and disentangling bewildering experiences, and in small encounters with the unanswerable will of his host.

He was taken to the great offices in Birmingham, and the wonderful system by which each vast machine was worked was explained to him. He was even privileged to sit with the great man in the inner sanctum and copy letters for him, though he was summarily turned out to see the sights of the great city when a visitor was announced. He explored the depths of the coal mines and finally spent a long morning at the foundry whose nightly glare still haunted his dreams. It was the latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most complicated modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced stooping forms on the outskirts. They eyed him aslant as they worked, for visitors were rare occurrences. He asked questions concerning them and received vague answers, and a new machine was offered for inspection.

Fulner, the young engineer who had been told off to show him round, understood what was expected of him and did his duty. Masters himself, though he accompanied them, apparently put himself also in Fulner's hands; he took no particular interest in the work, but his eye followed every movement of Christopher's and his ear strained to his questions. Christopher noticed that none but heads of departments paid any attention to the owner's presence, and he would have thought him unknown but for a word or two he caught as he lingered for a last look at a particularly fascinating electric lathe.

"Thinks he's master," grinned one man, with a shrug, towards the retreating form.

"Thinks we're part of his blasted machinery," growled his fellow worker.

Christopher passed on and forgot the lathe.

"Where do these people live?" he asked in the comparative quiet of a store yard.

"In the—the villages round, and as near as they can," said the engineer quietly and looked back. Mr. Masters had gone off to the store-keeper's office and was out of hearing. Fulner looked at Christopher again and apparently came to a decision.

"It is difficult, sometimes, this housing question," he said swiftly, "are you really interested?"

"Yes, I want to know what contrast they get to this. It's overpowering, this place."

"If there was time——" began the other, and stopped, seeing Mr. Masters was approaching. He was followed by a harassed-face sub-manager, who waited uneasily a few yards off.

"Christopher, I shall have to stay here an hour or two. You had better go back. You can catch the 12.40 at the station. Fulner will see you there."

He nodded to the engineer and strode off towards the main offices.

The sub-manager exchanged a look of consternation with Fulner before he followed.

"We'll go this way," said Fulner, leading Christopher to a new corner of the great enclosure, "that is, if you don't mind walking."

He did not speak again until they were outside the high walls that surrounded the works, then he looked quizzically at Christopher.

"You shall see where they live if you wish to," he said, "the contrast is not striking—only there is no organisation outside."

They went down a black cindery road between high walls and presently the guide said quietly, "Are you coming here to us, Mr. Aston?"

"No." Christopher's voice was fervent with thankfulness.

The other looked disappointed and stopped.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We thought you were. There were rumours"—he hesitated, "if you are not coming perhaps it is no good showing you. It makes a difference."

"I want to see where the people live," insisted Christopher, looking him squarely in the face.

The other nodded and they went on and came to a narrow street of mean, two-storied houses, with cracked walls and warped door-posts, blackened with smoke, begrimed with dirt. As much of the spring sunshine as struggled through the haze overshadowing the place served but to emphasise the hideous squalor of it. Children, for the most part sturdy-limbed and well-developed, swarmed in the road, women in a more or less dishevelled condition stared out of open doors at them as they passed.

To the secret surprise of Fulner his companion made no remark, betrayed no sign of disgust or distaste. He looked at it all; his face was grave and impassive and Fulner was again disappointed.

They passed a glaring new public house, the only spot in the neighbourhood where the sun could find anything to reflect his clouded brightness.

"We wanted that corner for a club," said Fulner bitterly, "but the brewer outbid us."

"Who's the landlord?" demanded Christopher sharply.

Fulner paused a moment before he answered.

"You are a cousin of Mr. Masters, aren't you?"

"No relation at all. Is he the landlord?"

"The land here is all his. Not what is on it."

A woman was coming down the road, a woman in a bright green dress with a dirty lace blouse fastened with a gold brooch. She had turquoise earrings in her ears and rings on her fingers.

She stopped Fulner.

"Mr. Fulner," she said in a quavering voice, "they say the master's at the works and that Scott's given Jim away to save his own skin. It isn't true, is it?"

Fulner looked at her with pity. Christopher liked him better than ever.

"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Lawrie, but Scott couldn't help himself. Mr. Masters spotted the game when we were in the big engine-room. You go down to the main gate and wait for Jim. Perhaps you'll get him home safe if you take him the short cut, not this way." He nodded his head towards the public house they had passed.

"It's a shame," broke out the woman wildly, but her sentences were overlaid with unwomanly words, "they all does it. I ask now, how's we to get coal at all if we don't get the leavings. Jim only does what they all does. What's 'arf a pail of coal to 'im? I'd like to talk to 'un, I would. Jim will go mad again, and I've three of 'un now to think of, the brats." She flung up her arms with a superbly helpless gesture and stumbled off down the road.

Christopher looked after her with a white face.

"What does it mean?" he asked.

"The men have a way of appropriating the remains of the last measure of coal they put on before going off duty. It's wrong of course: it's been going on for ages. I warned Scott—he's the foreman. They've been complaining about the coal supply at headquarters. Mr. Masters caught Jim Lawrie at it to-day as we left the big engine-room."

"Is it a first offence?"

"There's no first offence here," returned Fulner grimly. "There's one only. There's the club room. We have to pay L20 a year rent for the ground and then to keep it going."