“All in good faith,” said Aymer steadily, “he said he didn’t approve of education; as a proof of his sincerity, he cited the line he was taking with his own boy.”
There was a silence.
“He said he could put his hand on him when he liked.” Aymer’s voice was quite level and inexpressive, but his father leant forward and put his hand on his, saying hastily.
“He always says that. He believes it just a matter of money. It was his one answer to all my remonstrances. When he wanted him he could find him—not before. Aymer, I wish I’d been at home. Why did you see him?”
“I could hardly refuse; it would have been churlish—unpolitic. I did not know why he came. He was evidently struck with Christopher.”
He laughed a little unsteadily, but his father smothered a sigh and watched him with curious solicitude. The unwritten law that Christopher had learnt so well had been very heavily infringed, and Charles Aston had no liking for the man who had infringed it, though he was his first cousin.
He was weighing in his mind what his son must have suffered in that interview, and trying to see if it could have been foreseen and prevented.
Peter and Aymer, who was only five years his 103 junior, had been great friends in the far-off days before the tragedy, but the former was too nearly, though half unconsciously, connected with that to be a possible intimate for Aymer now. The possibility of his turning up in this casual manner, ignoring with ruthless amiability all that had passed, had really never occurred to either father or son, and they were both unprepared for a narrowly escaped crisis. But Aymer was evidently not going to own frankly how great had been the strain and how badly he had suffered under it. He set his pride to heal his bruised feelings, however, applauding himself secretly for not betraying to his cousin the torture to which he had unintentionally put him. But he could not, having done this, altogether put it from him, and the subject of Peter Masters cropped up next morning when Christopher was sitting on the edge of Cæsar’s bed.
Aymer asked him abruptly what he thought of the visitor of the previous day.
“I don’t like him at all. I think he’s beastly,” was Master Christopher’s emphatic verdict.