saw
her in the crude flashing glare from the streets without, that the
past ten years which had made of him a man had left her a girl still,
but since he was as yet no adept at pretty speeches he kept the
thought to himself and said shyly:

"It is not a question of age at all."

"You, too, think me incompetent to look after myself?"

"It is not a matter of competence either, is it? I mean, one can
easily understand that Mr. Wyatt is proud of being your...." He
stopped lamely.

"Finish your sentence, you tantalising boy."

"Your caretaker, then," he concluded defiantly.

"Delicious," she clapped her hands softly. "I thought you were going
to say 'proprietor.'"

"It is you who are the proprietor of the caretaker, isn't it?"

"The new cadet is worthy his commission," she pronounced with mock
gravity.

"It is a great honour, especially since I am not one of the family."

He never forgot this in her presence. It was as if an overscrupulous
remembrance of hard days forced him to disclaim kinship with anything
so finely feminine as Constantia Wyatt; as if he found no right of way
from his own world of concrete fact into that delicate gracious world
of illusions in which he placed her. Such barriers did not exist for
her, however, and thence it came that it was to Constantia that
Christopher spoke most easily of his relationship to the Aston
family.

She put aside his disclaimer now, almost indignantly.

"You belong to Aymer. How can you say you do not belong to us, when
you have been so good for him?"

His main claim on them all lay in that, that he was and had been good
_for_ the idolised Aymer Aston. He recognised it as she spoke and was
content, for the proud generosity of his nature was built on a
humility that had no underprops of petty pride.

"That was quite unpremeditated on my part," he protested whimsically;
"you are all far too good to me. I can never explain it to myself, but
I accept it, and realise I am a real millionaire."

Constantia Wyatt started slightly. Christopher noticed the diamonds on
her hair sparkle as she leant forward.

"How did you discover that?" she asked in a low voice.

"My fortune? I was only ten when I came to Caesar, but I must have been
a very dense child indeed if I had not known even then that the luck
of the gods was mine--if I had not been sensible of the kindness----"

His voice was low also and he fell into his old bad habit of leaving
his sentence unfinished--