Louis looked up in blank, incredulous amazement, and then almost laughingly exclaimed, 'Is that what you mean? Why, she is an infant, a baby—'
'Not in appearance—'
'You don't know her, father,' said Louis. 'I love her with all my heart, and could not do more. Why, she is, and always has been, my she-younger-brother!'
'I am aware,' said the Earl, without acknowledging this peculiar relationship, 'that this may appear very ridiculous, but experience has shown the need of caution. I should be concerned that your heedless good-nature should be misconstrued, so as to cause pain and disappointment to her, or to lead you to neglect one who has every claim to your esteem and gratitude.'
Louis was bewildered. 'I have been a wretch lately,' he said, 'but I did not know I had been a bear.'
'I did not mean that you could be deficient in ordinary courtesy; but I had hoped for more than mere indifferent civility towards one eminently calculated—' Lord Ormersfield for once failed in his period.
'Are we talking at cross purposes?' exclaimed Fitzjocelyn. 'What have I been doing, or not doing?'
'If my meaning require explanation, it is needless to attempt any.— Is your ankle painful to-night?'
Not a word more, except about his health, could Louis extract, and he went to his room in extreme perplexity. Again and again did he revolve those words. Quick as were his perceptions on most points, they were slow where self-consciousness or personal vanity might have sharpened them; and it was new light to him that he had come to a time of life that could attach meaning to his attentions.
Whom had he been neglecting? What had his father been hoping? Who was eminently calculated, and for what?