y, as illuminating to Aymer as Aymer was to him.
There were certain points of view, certain lines of thought with
regard to the attitude of these "under-world" people, which
Christopher knew without knowing how, and which, flashing out
unexpectedly, would dissolve philanthropic theories wholesale. Aymer
would retell them to his father afterwards, who in turn would bring
them out in his quiet, unexpected way in one of those wonderfully
eloquent speeches of his that made the whole list of "Societies" court
him as a dinner guest and speaker, and political coteries sigh with
pained surprise at his refusal to stand for Parliament.

Christopher, indeed, possessed to a full degree the power of absorbing
the mental atmosphere in which he lived and of becoming a sort of
visible incarnation of it. Places and people who had thus once found
expression in him could always bring to the surface again that
particular phase of existence they had originally stamped on his mind.
The Christopher who wandered amongst the wharfs and warehouses in that
vague region across the river, remembered and was concerned over quite
different matters to the happy boy who rode every morning in the Row
with Mr. Aston.

There were many people to and fro to Aston House: Men who were a power
in the world; men who would be so, and men who had been, as well as
many of no note at all. They came to consult Charles Aston on every
conceivable thing under the sun, from questions of high politics to
the management of a refractory son. They did not always take his
advice, nor did he always offer it, but they invariably came away with
a more definite sense of their own meaning and aims, and somehow such
aims were generally a little more just, a shade more honest, or a
little higher than they had imagined when they started out. Charles
Aston was still alluded to by men of high repute as "the man who might
have been," yet many there were who, had they considered it carefully,
might have said to themselves that "might have been" was less well
than "has been." Very occasionally he entertained and Constantia came
to play hostess for him. On these occasions Aymer rarely appeared at
dinner, but a few privileged guests visited him afterwards and kept
alive the tradition that Charles Aston's son, that poor fellow Aymer,
was an even more brilliant conversationalist and keener wit than his
father. But as a rule very few from the outside penetrated as far as
the Garden Wing of