“Twelve years, isn’t it? Well, you look better than you did then. I didn’t think you would come through—didn’t think you meant to. I’m sorry to miss Cousin Charles. He doesn’t approve of me, but he’s too polite to say so, even in a letter. How does he wear?”
“Well, on the whole. He works too hard.”
The other spread out his hands.
“Works. And to what end? I’m glad to have seen you again. It’s like old times, if you weren’t on that beastly sofa, poor old chap.”
“Perhaps you will call again when father is in,” 100 said Aymer steadily, with a mute wonder if a square inch of him was left unbruised.
“To tell the truth, I’m rarely in London. I work from Birmingham and New York, and calling is an expensive amusement to a busy man.”
“Produces nothing?”
“Yes, a good deal of pleasure. It’s worth it occasionally.”
He stood over his cousin, looking down at him with quite genuine concern and liking in his eyes. His size, his aggressiveness, his blundering disregard of decency towards trouble, everything about him was on such a gigantic scale that one could not weigh him by any accepted standard. Aymer knew it, and notwithstanding Peter’s unique powers of hurting him to the soul, he made no attempt to scale him, but met him on his own ground and ignored the torture.
“What has it cost you exactly, this visit?”