The spirit of waning July hung heavily over London. In mean streets and alleys it was inexpressibly dreary: the fagged inhabitants lacked even energy to quarrel.

But on the high ground westward of the Park, where big houses demand elbow-room and breathing space and even occasionally exclusive gardens, a little breeze sprang up at sundown and lingered on till dusk.

In this region lies one of the most beautiful houses in London, the country seat of some fine gentleman in Queen Anne’s day. It hid its beauties, however, from the public gaze, lying modestly back in a garden whose size had no claim to modesty at all. All one could see from the road, through the iron gates, was a glimpse of a wide portico, and a long row of windows. It stood high and in its ample garden the breeze ran riot, shaking the scent from orange and myrtle trees, from jasmine and roses, and wafting it in at the wide open windows of a room which, projecting from the house, seemed to take command of the garden.

It was a large room and the windows went from ceiling to floor. It was also a very beautiful room. In the gathering dusk the restful harmonies of its colours melted into soft, hazy blue, making it appear vaster than it really was. Also, it was unencumbered by much furniture and what there was so essentially fitted its place that it was unobtrusive. Three big canvases occupied the walls, indiscernible in the dim light, but masterpieces of world fame, heirlooms known all over Europe. There was a curious dearth of small objects and unessentials, nothing in all the 16 great space that could fatigue the eye or perplex the brain of the occupant.

The owner of the room was lying on a big sofa near one of the open windows. Within reach was a low bookcase, a table with an electric reading lamp, and a little row of electric bells, some scattered papers and an open telegram.

The man on the sofa lay quite still looking into the garden as it sunk from sight under the slowly falling veil of purple night.

He was evidently a tall man, with the head and shoulders of an athlete, and a face of such precise and unusual beauty that one’s instinct called out, “Here, then, God has planned a man.”

Aymer Aston, indeed, was not unlike his father, but far more regular in feature, more carefully hewn, and the serenity of the older face was lacking. Here was the face of a fighter, alive with the strong passions held in by a stronger will. There was almost riotous vitality expressed in his colouring, coppery-coloured hair and dark brows, eyes of surprising blueness and a tanned skin, for he spent hours lying in the sun, hatless and unshaded, with the avowed intention of “browning”; and he “browned” well except for a queer white triangled scar almost in the centre of his forehead, an ugly mark that showed up with fresh distinctness when any emotion brought the quick blood to his face. There was indeed nothing in his appearance to suggest a cripple or an invalid.

Nevertheless, Aymer Aston, aged thirty-five, the best polo-player, the best fencer, the best athlete of his day at College, possessing more than his share of the vigour of youth and glory of life, had, for over ten years, never moved without help from the sofa on which he lay, and the strange scar and a certain weakness in the left hand and arm were the only visible signs of the catastrophe that had broken his life. 17

A thin, angular man entered, and crossed the room with an apologetic cough.

“Is that you, Vespasian?” demanded his master without moving. “Have they come?”

“No, sir, but there is a message from the House. I believe Mr. Aston is wanted particularly.”

“What a nuisance. Why can’t they let him alone? He might as well be in office.”

The man, without asking permission, rearranged his master’s cushions with a practised hand.

“The young gentleman had better have some supper upstairs, sir, as it’s so late,” he suggested. “I’ll see to it myself.”

“Send him in to me directly they come, Vespasian.”

“Yes, sir.”

He withdrew as quietly as he had entered and Aymer continued to look out at the dark, and think over the change he, of his own will, was about to make in his monotonous existence. He was so lost in thought he did not hear the door open again or realise the “change” was actually an accomplished fact till a half-frightened gasp of “Oh!” caught his ear. He turned as well as he could, unaided.

“Is that you, Christopher?”

The voice was so singularly like Mr. Aston’s that Christopher felt reassured. The dim vastness of the room had frightened him, also he had thought it empty.

“Come over here to me,” said Aymer, holding out his hand, “I can’t come to you.”

Christopher nervously advanced. The brightness of the corridor outside left his eyes confused in this dim light. Aymer suddenly remembered this and turned on a switch. The vague shadowy space was flooded with soft radiance. It was like magic to the small boy.

He was first aware of a gorgeous glint of colouring 18 in a rug flung across the sofa, and then of a man lying on a pile of dull-tinted pillows, a man with red hair and blue eyes, watching him eagerly.

Children as a rule are not susceptible to physical beauty, turning with undeviating instinct to the inner soul of things, with a fine disregard for externals, but Christopher, in this, was rather abnormal. He was very actively alive to outward form.

Since Mr. Aston had told him Aymer was a cripple Christopher had been consumed with unspeakable dread. His idea of a cripple was derived from a distorted, evil-faced old man who had lived in the same house that had once sheltered his mother and him. The mere thought of it made him sick with horror. And when the tall gentleman in black, who had met them in the entrance hall and escorted him here, had opened the door and put him inside, he had much ado not to rush out again. He conquered his fear with unrecognised heroism, and this was his reward.

He stood staring, with all his worshipful admiration writ large on his little tired white face. Aymer Aston saw it and laughed. He was quite aware of his own good looks and perfectly unaffected thereby, though he took some pains to preserve them. But his vanity had centred itself on one thing in his earlier life, and that, his great strength, and it died when that was no more.

“Little Christopher,” he said, “come and sit down by me: you must be tired to death.”

“Are you Mr. Aymer?” demanded Christopher, still staring.

“Yes, only you mustn’t call me that, I think. I wonder what you will call me?”

Christopher offered no solution to the problem.

“Would you like to live here with me?”

He looked round. A dim sense of alarm crept back. The room looked so empty and unreal, so 19 “alone.” Without knowing why, Christopher, who had never had a real home to pine for, felt miserably homesick.

Aymer watched him closely and did not press the question. Instead, he asked him in a matter-of-fact way to shut the window for him.

The boy did so without blundering. The window-fastening was new to him, and Aymer noticed he looked at it curiously and shut it twice to see how it went. Then he sat down again and continued to gaze at Aymer.

“I forgot, I was to tell you something,” he said suddenly, his face wrinkling with distress. “The other one—the gentleman who brought me––”

“My father?”

Christopher nodded. “I oughtn’t to have forgotten. He said he had to go to the House, but he’d be back quite soon, he hoped.”

“He’s had no dinner, I suppose,” grumbled Aymer.

“Yes, we had dinner at—I forget the name of the place—and tea. And yesterday we had dinner too.”

“That was wise,” said Aymer gravely. “Where’s Mr. Stapleton?”

“He went home by train this morning. I sat in his place all the time, not at the back.”

He paused thoughtfully. An idea that had been dimly forming in his brain, took alarming shape. A small companion at the Union had lately been sent out as a page to a kindly family. Christopher wondered if that was the meaning of all these strange adventures for him. At the same time he was conscious of so vast a sense of disappointment that he was compelled to put his Fate to the test at once. He jerked out the inquiry with breathless abruptness.

“Am I going to be your page?”

“Page?” Aymer Aston echoed the words with consternation; then held out his hand to the child. 20

“Didn’t my father tell you?” he asked.

A kind of nervous exasperation seized on Christopher. He was tired, overwrought, puzzled and baffled.

“No one tells me anything,” he said petulantly, blinking hard to keep back the tears; “they just took me.”

“Do you want to be a page boy?”

“No.” It was emphatic to the point of rudeness.

Aymer put his arm round him and drew him near, laughing.

“You are not going to be a page,” he said, “you are going to be”—he hesitated—“to be my own boy—just as if you were my son. I’ve adopted you.”

“Why?”

Christopher’s dark eyes were fixed on the blue ones and then he saw the scar for the first time. It interested him so much he hardly heard Aymer’s slow answer when it came.

“I have a great deal of time on my hands, and I should have liked a son of my own. As I can’t have that I’ve adopted you. Don’t you think you can like me?”

Christopher looked round the room and back at the sofa. The voice was kind and the arm that was round him gripped him firmly; also, Mr. Aston had said he lived here too. That was reassuring. He was not quite certain how he felt towards this strangely fascinating man, but he was quite sure of his sentiments towards Mr. Aston.

“Mr. Aston lives here, doesn’t he?”

“Yes; do you like him best?”

“I like him very much,” said Christopher truthfully, and added considerately, “You see, I’ve known him longer, haven’t I?”

“You must like me too.”

Christopher was too young to read the passionate 21 hunger in the voice and the look. It was gone in a moment.

Aymer released him, laughing.

“Is there anyone else?” asked the boy, looking vaguely round.

“Anyone else living here? Only the servants.”

“I don’t mean that.” A puzzled look came into his face. “I mean—there was Mrs. Moss and Grannie Jane, and Mrs. Sartin and Jessy and mother.” Then he recollected Mr. Aston’s prohibition and got red and embarrassed.

“You mean—a woman,” said Aymer in a strangely quiet voice.

Christopher noticed the scar again, clear and distinct. Aymer took out a cigarette and lit it carefully. Christopher watched dumbly. He wanted to cry: for no reason that he could discover. Presently Aymer turned to him as he sat on a low chair by the side of the wide sofa and put his arm round him again.

“I’m sorry, little Christopher,” he said rather huskily, perhaps because he was smoking, “but I’m afraid I can’t give you that, old chap. We only—remember them here.”

The tired child yielded to the slight pressure of the arm—his head dropped against his new friend—the room was very quiet—only Mr. Aymer must have been mistaken. It seemed to Christopher a thin black-clad woman was in the room—somewhere—she was looking at Aymer and would not see him at first—then she turned her head—he called “Mother,” and opened his eyes to find Mr. Aymer bending over him.

When Mr. Aston had returned and found Aymer smoking composedly with one arm round the sleeping boy, he had pointed out with great care the enormity of a small child being out of bed at eleven o’clock.

Aymer put down his cigarette and looked at his charge. 22

“Vespasian did come for him,” he confessed; “I thought it a pity to wake him till you came. It’s just as I feared,” he added with assumed pathos, “you have had first innings and I shall have to take a second place.”

“It’s only just that he got used to me: I hardly talked to him at all,” pleaded Mr. Aston humbly, and Aymer laughed. Whereupon Christopher woke up, rubbing his eyes, and smiled sleepily at Mr. Aston.

“I gave him the message, not just at once, but almost.”

His first friend sat down and drew him to his knee.

“Well, what do you think of my big boy?” asked Mr. Aston. “I’ve been scolding him for not sending you to bed.”

Christopher looked from one to the other with solemn eyes, blinking in the light.

“Scolding him? Isn’t he too big to be scolded?”

The men laughed and involuntarily glanced at each other in a curiously conscious manner.

“He does not think anyone too big to scold,” sighed Aymer resignedly. “Father, about the name: I’d rather tell him to-night.” His voice was a little hurried. Mr. Aston glanced at him questioningly.

“As you like, Aymer—if he’s not too sleepy to listen. Are you, Christopher?”

“I’m not tired,” answered Christopher, valiantly blinking sleep out of his eyes.

It was Aymer who spoke, slowly and directly. Mr. Aston kept his eyes on the boy and tried not to see his son.

“What is your real name, Christopher, do you know?”

“James Christopher Hibbault, but they calls me Jim, except him.”

In his sleepiness and agitation the boy had dropped back into country dialect. Aymer winced. 23

“That is the only name you know? Well, Christopher, it’s a good name, but all the same I want you to forget it at present. I want you to call yourself always, Christopher Aston. Do you think you can remember?”

The newly-named one stood silent, puzzling out something in his mind.

“Will it make me not belong to mother?” he said at last.

There was a faint movement on the sofa. It was Mr. Aston who answered, putting his hand gently on the boy’s head.

“No, little Christopher, nothing will make you cease to belong to her; we do not wish that. But it will be more easy for you to have our name. We want Christopher Aston to have a better time than poor little Jim Hibbault. Only, Christopher, remember Aston is my name, and I am only lending it to you, and you must take very great care of it.”

“Isn’t it his name too?” The child edged a little nearer his friend, and looked at Aymer.

“Yes, it’s Aymer’s name too. And, Christopher, if we were both to give you everything we possess we could not give you anything we value more than the name we lend you, so you must be very good to it. Now, Aymer, I insist on your ringing for Vespasian: the child should have been in bed hours ago. I must really buy you a book of nursery rules.”

Vespasian was apparently of the same mind as Mr. Aston. Disapproval was plainly expressed on his usually impassive face when he entered.

“Is that Vespasian?” demanded Christopher.

“Yes, and you will have to do just what he tells you, Christopher, just as I have to,” said Aymer severely.

Christopher regarded him doubtfully: he was not quite sure if he were serious or not. He did not look 24 as if people would tell him to do things, yet the grave man in black did not smile.

“It’s a funny name,” he said at last, not meaning to be rude.

“Vespasian was a great general,” remarked Aymer, and then added hastily, seeing the boy’s bewilderment increased, “Not this one, the General’s dead, but this is a good second.”

“Aymer, you are incorrigible,” expostulated Mr. Aston. “Good-night, little Christopher.”

He kissed him and Christopher’s eyes grew large with wonder. He did not know men did kiss little boys, and he ventured slyly to rub his cheek against the black sleeve.

“Good-night, Christopher.” Aymer held out his hand, and then suddenly, half shyly, and half ashamed, kissed him also, and Vespasian bore him off to bed.

The two men sat silently smoking, avoiding for the moment the subject nearest their hearts, Aymer, because he was fighting hard to get some mastering emotion under control, and he loathed showing his feelings even to his father; Mr. Aston, because he was aware of this and wanted Aymer to have time.

All that day he had been secretly dreading to-night, shrinking like a coward from a situation which must arouse in his son memories better forgotten. He was not a man given to shirking unpleasing experiences to save his own heart a pang, but he was a veritable child in the way that he studied to preserve his eldest son from the like.

It was Aymer who first spoke in his usual matter-of-fact tone.

“Had you any difficulties?”

“None whatever,” answered his father, crossing his legs and preparing to be communicative. “Stapleton had been all over the ground before and knew every point. We went first to Surbiton Workhouse, 25 since she told Felton she stayed there. They found the entry for us. Then we went on to Hartley, which is quite a small village and off the main road. We stayed the night there, and went to the cottage where Felton had seen her. It was quite true, all he said. The old woman remembered distinctly a tramp-looking man stopping and calling to her over the gate. They sat in the garden and talked together for some time. She and the boy had been there a month, but they went the day after Felton’s visit—seemed frightened, the old lady said. Apparently they meant to go to Southampton, for she had asked the way there. Basingstoke must have been the next stop, but we did not know where until the boy told us. They were in funds, so did not go to the House. We got to Whitmansworth the next afternoon. Then a strange thing happened, one of those chance coincidences that put to rout all our schemes. There is a hill going into Whitmansworth with a milestone on the top. I drove slowly, as I wanted to see if it really were the place, and by the stone was a small boy. The likeness was so absurd that it might have been ...” he stopped abruptly and examined his cigar, “had I not been seeking him I should have seen it. I found out his name, and that I was right, and took him up and drove to the Union. They raised no objections—it was only a matter of form. The master and his wife seem to be good people, and to have been kind to the boy.”

He came to a pause again. Aymer still waited. Mr. Aston walked to the window and looked out at the night, and then went on without turning:

“She had never left the slightest clue or given any hint whatever as to her identity. She was going to Southampton, she said. But she was dying of exhaustion then. They could do nothing for her. She asked them to keep the boy. The Mosses took a fancy to 26 him, and it was managed. She would not say where she came from.”

Aymer lay very still, his face set and immovable.

“The strength of her purpose: think of it, in a woman!” said Mr. Aston a little unsteadily; “the boy should have grit in him, Aymer.”

“What did they say of the boy?”

“Ah.” Mr. Aston resumed his seat with a sigh.

“Well, what’s your own impression, Aymer?”

“I am satisfied.”

Mr. Aston leant forward with a wealth of affection in his kind eyes, and straightened the edge of the gorgeous sofa cover. “Aymer, old chap, you are too sensible, I know, to imagine it is going to run easily and smoothly from the first. The boy will come out all right: he is young enough to shape, and worth shaping. But he has had everything against him except one thing. It means many troubles and disappointments for you, but I believe it will have its compensations. It will help fill your life, at least.”

“I understand,” said Aymer, steadily. “I should like to tell you just how I feel about it, father. Putting aside entirely the question of it being—Christopher—. That was a stroke of Providence, shall we say? I had you and Nevil, and the children. Life was not altogether empty, sir. But I felt I had learnt something from life,—from myself,—mostly from you,—that might be useful to a man. Not to pass this on,” the steady voice lost its main quality for a moment, “seemed a waste. I told you all this when I first spoke of adopting someone; and at that precise moment the clue which led us to Christopher was put into our hands. There was no choice then. I say this again because I want you to remember that the idea that first started my plan is still the main one. Christopher, being Christopher, does not alter it. There is only this thing certain,” he raised himself a 27 very little on his right arm and laid down his cigarette deliberately, “I’ve taken the boy and I mean to do my best by him, but he is mine now. If the fate that—she died to save him from—comes to him, it must come. I will not stand in his way, but I will have no hand in bringing it to pass, I will raise no finger to summon it, nor will I call him from it, if it come. Until, and unless it comes, he is mine. I think even she would let me have him on those conditions.” He lay back again, his flushed face still witnessing to the force of his feeling.

“On any conditions,” said his father, “if she knew you now. Only you must bear the chance in mind in dealing with him. And it’s only fair to tell you the Union Master’s report on him.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Fairly docile, but inclined to argue the point. Truthful,—I discovered that myself—but either through lack of training or—according to the Master—through bad training in London, he is—” Mr. Aston stumbled over a word, half laughed, and then said, “well, he has a habit of acquisitiveness, shall we call it? When you think of her history it seems at once natural and strange. They had not known him to actually take things—money, that is,—but if he found any—and he appears to have luck in finding things—he was not particular to discover the real owner. It may be a difficulty, Aymer.”

“Hereditary instinct,” said Aymer a little shortly.

“Well, my own theory is that acquisitiveness is generosity inverted,” concluded Mr. Aston thoughtfully, “and that heredity is merely a danger signal, though it may mean fighting. I believe you can do it, my dear boy, but it is a big job.”

“I hope so, I was a born fighter, you know.”

“You have not done badly that way, son Aymer,” returned his father quietly. 28

“You mean you have not. You are very gracious to a vanquished man, sir.”

It was one of his rare confessions of his indebtedness to his father, and perhaps Mr. Aston was more embarrassed at receiving it than Aymer in confessing it. For the indebtedness was undeniable. The Aymer Aston of the present day was not the Aymer Aston of the first bitter years of his imprisonment. The fight had been a long one: but whether the love, the patience, the forbearance of the elder man had regenerated the fierce nature, or whether he had only assisted the true Aymer to work out his own salvation was an open question. Certainly those dark years had left their mark on Mr. Aston, but, for a certainty they were honourable scars, and he, the richer for his spent strength. He had sacrificed much for him, but the reward reaped for his devotion was the knowledge that of their friendship was woven a curtain of infinite beauty that helped to shut away the tragedy of Aymer’s life.