“Good-looking boy, Aymer,” he said carelessly. “You call him Aston?”
“We’ve given him our own name,” said Aymer steadily, “because it saves complications and explanations.”
“A very wise precaution. What are you going to do with him eventually?”
“I hardly know yet. What were you saying about the strike?”
They fell to discussing a recent labour trouble in the Midlands, and Christopher gathered a hazy notion that their visitor employed vast numbers of men who were not particularly fond of him, and for whom he 95 had not only no affection, but no sort of feeling whatever, except as instruments of his will.
Christopher was very glad he was not one of them; he felt rather hostile to the big, careless, opulent man who spoke to Aymer with a familiarity that Christopher resented and had already apparently forgotten his own small existence.
The forget was but apparent, however, for presently he turned sharply to the boy and asked him if he had ever been down a coal mine. Christopher, putting control on his own hot curiosity to explore the subject, answered that he had not, and gave Mr. Masters his second cup of tea without any sugar to emphasise his own indifference to the questioner, who unfortunately never noticed the omission, but drank his tea with equal satisfaction.
“Ever been over an iron foundry?” persisted Mr. Masters, with the same scrutinising gaze.
Cæsar was playing with his favourite long tortoise-shell paper-knife; he seemed unusually indifferent to Christopher’s manners, nor did he intervene to save him from the string of sharp questions that ensued.
Christopher made effort to answer the questioner with ordinary politeness, but he was not communicative, and Mr. Masters presently leant back in his chair and laughed.