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? It flashed upon him all at once. 'I see! I see!' he cried, and burst into a laugh. Then came consternation, or something very like it. He did not want to feel embarked in manhood. And then his far-away dream of a lady-love had been so transcendently fair, so unequalled in grace, so perfect in accomplishments, so enthusiastic in self-devoted charity, all undefined, floating on his imagination in misty tints of glory! That all this should be suddenly brought down from cloudland, to sink into Mary Ponsonby, with the honest face and downright manner for whom romance and rapture would be positively ridiculous!