“You think love can better afford to wait than Cæsar?”
“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 189 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.