“I understand the fortune well enough now,” said Christopher bitterly; “anyone can do it if they take one aspect of things and subordinate everybody and everything to it.”
He was at Marden again. It was a glorious spring evening and Cæsar’s couch was drawn up to the open window. Mr. Aston sat on the far side of it and Christopher leant against the window-frame smoking moodily.
“You will dissipate it fast enough at the rate you are going,” remarked Cæsar. His eyes followed every movement of the young man with a jealous hunger.
Christopher shook his head resignedly. “It can’t be done. It goes on making itself. We are going to allow ourselves ten thousand a year. It’s a fearful lot for two people”—his eyes wandered across the lawn to Patricia, where she sat with Renata—“or even three, but that’s what it costs to live properly at Stormly, and the rest has to be used somehow.”
“How about Stormly Park? Do you and Patricia like the place?”
He shook his head again. “I’m afraid we don’t. We both feel we are living in an hotel. But I must be there on the spot, and she too. As it is, we have only had time to do so little.”
“Cottages, schools, hospitals,” murmured Mr. Aston, softly.
“They are only means to an end,” returned Christopher quickly, “only what they are entitled to as human beings in a civilised world. Think of having to begin at that. We’ve got to make restitution before 381 we can make progress. They mistrust all one does, of course. They use the bathrooms as coal stores, their coppers for potatoes, their allotments as rubbish ground, but it’s better than the front yard, and, anyhow, the children will know a bit more about it.”
“You have laid down Patrimondi roads for them,” Cæsar put in.
“Of course,” Christopher answered, accepting it literally, “they appreciate that at least. The roads were beastly.”