of
immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a
predilection for a free and open expanse of neck.

"Look at Mr. Aymer," pointed out the great general's successor
sternly. "You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying
on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own
comfort."

Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had
insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if Caesar
really preferred it.

But in spite of small differences of opinion, Vespasian and he were
good friends, and he received much instruction from the mouth of that
inestimable man. It was he who drilled him in Mr. Aymer's little ways,
warned him how he hated to be reminded of his helplessness, and could
not endure anyone but Vespasian himself to move him from sofa to
chair, and that only in the strictest privacy. How he disliked meeting
anyone when wheeled from his own room to the dining-room for dinner,
which was the only meal he took in public, and that only in company
with his father or very intimate friends. How he avoided asking anyone
to hand him things though he did not object to unsolicited help, which
Christopher soon learnt to render as unostentatiously as Vespasian
himself. Also it was Vespasian who explained to him woodenly, in
answer to his direct question, that the scar on Mr. Aymer's forehead
was the result of a shooting accident. His revolver had gone off as he
was cleaning it, said Vespasian, had nearly killed him, had left him
paralysed on one side, so he'd never be better. He added, Mr. Aymer
didn't like it talked about. All this and more did the boy learn from
this discreet man, but never did Vespasian hint at those dark years
when to serve poor Aymer Aston was a work for which no money could
pay, when the patient father and much-tried man had secretly wondered
whether that fight for mere life that had followed on the ghastly
accident had indeed been worth the winning. There was no word of this
in Vespasian's revelations. He only impressed on Christopher the
necessity of avoiding any expression of pity or commiseration with the
paralysed man, and a warning that a somewhat casual manner towards the
world, and his entirely undemonstrative way, was no true index of Mr.
Aymer's real feelings.

Christopher was himself warm-hearted and given to expressing his
joyous feelings with engaging frankness. It could hardly have been
otherwise, brought