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