As he spoke, he pulled his leg up so that his foot was on the seat he was sitting on and raised his trouser leg to rub his ankle.
“It hurts!” he complained. “It was so numb that I could not feel it at first.”
“You will receive no sympathy from me,” the Marquis replied, “and the sooner you return home the better.”
“I have no intention of doing that,” the boy said positively, “and nothing you or anyone else can say will make me.”
The Marquis could not see him very clearly even in the moonlight, but the boy’s voice was not broken and, as his was small and his hands and his bones seemed delicate, the Marquis was sure that he was very young.
“Now listen to me,” he said in a different tone. “All boys at some time in their lives feel like running away from their family and their lessons. But
