Since Mr. Aston had told him Aymer was a cripple Christopher had been consumed with unspeakable dread. His idea of a cripple was derived from a distorted, evil-faced old man who had lived in the same house that had once sheltered his mother and him. The mere thought of it made him sick with horror. And when the tall gentleman in black, who had met them in the entrance hall and escorted him here, had opened the door and put him inside, he had much ado not to rush out again. He conquered his fear with unrecognised heroism, and this was his reward.
He stood staring, with all his worshipful admiration writ large on his little tired white face. Aymer Aston saw it and laughed. He was quite aware of his own good looks and perfectly unaffected thereby, though he took some pains to preserve them. But his vanity had centred itself on one thing in his earlier life, and that, his great strength, and it died when that was no more.
“Little Christopher,” he said, “come and sit down by me: you must be tired to death.”
“Are you Mr. Aymer?” demanded Christopher, still staring.
“Yes, only you mustn’t call me that, I think. I wonder what you will call me?”
Christopher offered no solution to the problem.
“Would you like to live here with me?”
He looked round. A dim sense of alarm crept back. The room looked so empty and unreal, so 19 “alone.” Without knowing why, Christopher, who had never had a real home to pine for, felt miserably homesick.
Aymer watched him closely and did not press the question. Instead, he asked him in a matter-of-fact way to shut the window for him.
The boy did so without blundering. The window-fastening was new to him, and Aymer noticed he looked at it curiously and shut it twice to see how it went. Then he sat down again and continued to gaze at Aymer.