'Have you no friends on your mother's side, Mr. Florian?'
'None!' said Florian, with a sad inflection of voice.
'Indeed! and what do you mean to do?'
'Follow the drum, most probably,' replied Florian bitterly and a little defiantly, as Shafto's coldness, amid his own great and good fortune, roused his pride and galled his heart, which sank as he thought of Dulcie Carlyon, sweet, golden-haired English Dulcie, so far away.
Mr. Kippilaw shook his bald head at the young man's answer.
'I have some little influence in many ways, and if I can assist your future views you may command me, Mr. Florian,' said he with fatherly kindness, for he had reared—yea and lost—more than one fine lad of his own.
It has been said that one must know mankind very well before having the courage to be solely and simply oneself; thus, as Shafto's knowledge of mankind was somewhat limited, he felt his eye quail more than once under the steady gaze of Mr. Kippilaw.
'It is a very strange thing,' said the latter, 'that after the death of Mr. Cosmo in Glentilt, when Lord and Lady Fettercairn were so anxious to discover and recall his younger brother as the next and only heir to the title and estates, we totally failed to trace him. We applied to the War Office for the whereabouts of Major Lennard Melfort, but the authorities there, acting upon a certain principle, declined to afford any information. Advertisements, some plainly distinct, others somewhat enigmatical, were often inserted in the Scotsman and Times, but without the least avail.
'As for the Scotsman,' said Shafto, 'the Major——'
'Your father, you mean?'