They lifted him up the steps into the hall, where he signed to be laid down on the seat of the cool north window, and trying to smile, said ’it was only the hot sun, and his foot aching rather; it would soon go off.’  And when, with much pain and difficulty, Frampton had released his swollen foot from the regulation-boot, into which he had foolishly thrust it, he went on more fluently.  ’He had thought it his duty, especially when Mr. Shaw, the captain of his troop, had chosen to go away—­he had believed it could do no harm—­he was sure it was only a little present discomfort, and in the present crisis—­’

He addressed his aunt, but his eyes were on his father; and when he heard not a single word from him, he suddenly ceased, and presently, laying his head down on the window-sill, he begged that no one would stand and watch him, he should come into the library in a few minutes.

The few minutes lasted, however, till near dinnertime, when he called to Mary, as she was coming downstairs, and asked her to help him into the library; he could remain no longer exposed to Frampton’s pity, as dinner went in.

He dragged himself along with more difficulty than he had found for weeks, and sank down on the sofa with a sigh of exhaustion; while Clara, who was alone in the room, reared herself up from an easy-chair, where she had been sitting in an attitude that would have been despair to her mistress.

‘Ha, Clara!’ said Louis, presently; ’you look as if you had been the object of invective?’

‘I don’t care,’ exclaimed Clara, ’I know you were in the good old cause.’

‘Conde at Jarnac, Charles XII. at Pultowa—­which?’ said Louis.  ’I thought of both myself—­only, unluckily, I made such frightful blunders.  I was thankful to my men for bringing me off, like other great commanders.’

’Oh, Louis! but at least you were in your place—­you set the example.’

’Unluckily, these things descend from the sublime to the other thing, when one is done up, and beginning to doubt whether self-will cannot sometimes wear a mask.’

’I’m sure they are all quite cross enough to you already, without your being cross to yourself.’

‘An ingenious and elegant impersonal,’ said Louis.

Clara rushed out into the garden to tell the stiff old rose-trees that if Lord Ormersfield were savage now, he would be more horrid than ever.

Meanwhile, Louis drew a long sigh, murmuring, ’Have I gone and vexed him again?  Mary, have I been very silly?’

The half-piteous doubt and compunction had something childish, which made her smile as she answered:  ’You had better have done as you were told.’

‘The surest road to silliness,’ said Louis, whose tendency was to moralize the more, the more tired he was, ’is to think one is going to do something fine!  It is dismal work to come out at the other end of an illusion.’

‘With a foot aching as, I am afraid, yours does.’