“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 193 laughed and said a little shyly he hoped Mr. Masters would not mind his not talking till they were out of the streets.