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Updated: June 21, 2025
"What will happen if he won't accept it?" he questioned thoughtfully. "It is for him to decide." Aymer's tone was earnestly emphatic. "Father, we've done our part. We can't alter it if we would. Leave him free." "It is the crown of your success that you can do so, my dear old fellow."
It was a renewal of youth, hopes, ambitions, again possible in the person of this child, and for the second time a fierce, restless jealousy of his cousin began to stir in the inner depths of Aymer's being, as fire which may yet break into life beneath the grey, piled-up ashes which conceal it.
He desired above all things to leave Aymer free in his chosen task, but he realised at once this was a point where Aymer was quite as likely to hurt himself as Christopher, and, therefore, that he, Aymer's father, must make an exception to his rule and he did not like it. He began drawing vague lines on his shirtcuff with a pencil, an evil habit of his when uneasy in mind.
"Now," he said cheerily, "we are ready for the fray when you are ready, Master Christopher," he added with a twinkle in his eye. But Christopher's ill-temper had evaporated with the short wait. After all, the man was Aymer's cousin, and he couldn't help being a brute, and if he really wanted to see St. Michael perhaps it was a piece of luck for him that the postman was late.
"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.
"I hope it will be the commencement of a long and fruitful acquaintance." Christopher felt rather at a loss to know if the man meant to be impertinent or was merely being silly. He looked at Cæsar with the hostile impatience he felt only too apparent. The hostility but not the impatience deepened as he noticed the drawn beaten look on Aymer's face.
The better self, if it ever existed, got stamped out. I told her nothing should come between us, that nothing short of death should keep me from her, while I could move hand or foot." The white scar on Aymer's forehead was very plain and his face had grown thin and sharp. Christopher for the first time looked up at him and away again.
Besides this, Peter's interest in the boy was probably a mere freak, or at the best, sprang from a desire to serve his cousin, unless by any remote chance he had stumbled on a clue to Christopher's identity. This last suspicion wove itself like a black thread into the grey woof of Aymer's existence. His whole being by now had become concentrated in the boy's life.
Let me go, I'll be a good boy." They both laughed, and Mr. Aston released him. The colour burned on Aymer's face. Grown man as he was, the sudden subjection to authority so exerted was hard to bear even in the half-joking aspect with which his father covered it. Mr. Aston knew it.
After that he sat on the foot of the bed and talked frankly of his visit, and minute by minute the jealous fire in Aymer's heart died down to extinction. Presently, however, he said abruptly and rather reproachfully: "You never told me Mr. Masters had married." For a confused second the room and the occupants were lost in a fiery mist and only Christopher's voice lived in the chaos.
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