“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 216 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.”