“Yes, I felt that. There seemed nothing physically wrong, but I felt he must have more people round him.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I stay here too, and go up and down when needs must.”
“And the Colonial Commission? How will it get on without you?”
“Oh, they easily found a better man. As I explained to Cæsar, I was only asked as a compliment,” he answered simply. 165
Christopher kept to himself his dissent from this, and was silent a moment, thinking how this man’s life was spent to one end; and desirable as he felt that end to be, he was of age now to feel a tinge of regret for all that had been and still was sacrificed to it. An infinitesimal sacrifice of personal feeling and convenience was demanded of him now, if he were to second St. Michael’s attempt to keep Aymer from Aston House and teach him to permanently regard Marden Court as home, for dearly as Christopher loved Marden it was only there he was awake to the apparently indisputable truth that he was not one of that dear family who had done their best to make him forget once and for all that obnoxious fact. His sense of proprietorship in Aymer and of Aymer’s in him was undeniably stronger in town than in the country, and this not entirely because Nevil was to all intents master of Marden, but rather that there Aymer himself was less isolated, merged more into the general family life, and became again part of the usages and traditions of his own race.
Mr. Aston, without actually speaking the words, had conveyed to Christopher his own dread lest some day Aymer might be left alone, stranded mentally and physically in the great silent London house that was their home by force of dear companionship. Christopher saw it in a flash, saw it so clearly that he involuntarily glanced at his companion to assure himself of the remoteness of that dread chance. Hard on this thought pressed the knowledge that neither of these two men who had done so much for him made the least claim on his life or asked ought of him but success in his chosen line—and that knowledge was both sweet and bitter to him.
“Cæsar will be far better satisfied when you are actually started at work,” Mr. Aston went on. “He lives in your future, Christopher, he is more impatient 166 for this training period to be over than you yourself.”
“Because I am training and have no time to think. The first real step is coming. I have a good chance, only I must tell him first.”
He quickened his steps insensibly, for the thought of Cæsar waiting was like a spur even to physical effort, and even so his mind outraced his feet, till it came full tilt against a girl coming directly from its goal and momentarily obliterating it by her very presence.