In his twentieth year Florian was really a handsome fellow, and if, without absurdity, the term 'beautiful' could be applied to a young man, he was so, in his perfect manliness. Tall in figure, hard and well developed in muscle, regular in features, he had clear, dark, honest eyes, with lashes like a girl's, and a dark, silky moustache.
Shafto's face was in some respects handsome too, but an evil one to look at, in one way. His fair eyebrows were heavy, and had a way of meeting in a dark frown when he was thinking. His pale grey eyes were shifty, and were given him, like his tongue, to conceal rather than express his thoughts, for they were sharp and cunning. His nostrils were delicate, and, like his thin lips, suggestive of cruelty, while his massive jaw and thick neck were equally so—we must say almost to brutality.
They were rather a contrast, these two young men—a contrast no less great in their dispositions and minds than in their outward appearance. They were so dissimilar—one being dark and the other fair—that no one would have taken them for brothers, as they were generally supposed to be, so affectionate was the Major to both, and both bearing his name in the locality.
As a schoolboy Shafto had won an unpleasant reputation for jockeying his companions, 'doing' them out of toys, sweetmeats, marbles, and money, and for skilfully shifting punishments on the wrong shoulders when opportunity offered, and not unfrequently on those of the unsuspecting Florian.
From some of his proclivities, the Major thought Shafto would make a good attorney, and so had him duly installed in the office of Lewellen Carlyon, the nearest village lawyer, while for his own boy, Florian, he had higher hopes and aspirations, to make him, like himself, a soldier; but though far from idle, or lacking application, Florian failed, under the insane high-pressure system of 'cramming,' to pass, and not a few—Shafto particularly—laid it to the account of a certain damsel, Dulcie by name, who was supposed, with some truth, to occupy too much of his thoughts.
Disgusted by the result of his last 'exam.,' Florian would at once have enlisted, like so many others, who rush as privates for commissions nowadays; but his father's fast-failing health, his love for Dulcie Carlyon, and the desperate but 'Micawber'-like hope that 'something would turn up,' kept him hanging on day by day aimlessly at Revelstoke, without even the apparent future that had opened to Shafto when elevated to a high stool in Lawyer Carlyon's office.
As time went on, Lennard Melfort (or MacIan as he called himself), though he had a high appreciation of Shafto's sense, turn for business to all appearance, cleverness, and strength of character, turned with greater pleasure to his own son Florian, whose clear open brow and honest manly eyes bore nature's unmistakable impress of a truer nobility than ever appertained to the truculent and anti-national lords of Fettercairn.
Though to all appearance the best of friends before the world, the cousins were rivals; but as Florian was the successful lover, Shafto had a good basis for bitterness, if not secret hate.
In common with the few neighbours who were in that sequestered quarter, the lawyer liked the Major—he was so gentle, suave, retiring in manner, and courteously polite. He liked Florian too, but deemed him idle, and there his liking ended.
He took Shafto into his office at the Major's urgent request, as a species of apprentice, but he—after the aphorism of 'Dr. Fell'—did not much affect the young man, though he found him sharp enough—too sharp at times; and, like most of the neighbours, he never cared to inquire into the precise relationship of the Major and the two lads, both of whom from boyhood had called the latter 'Papa.'