Durnovo looked quite fit for the task he set himself.

He had regained his strength on the voyage, and with returning muscular force his moral tone was higher, his influence over men greater.

Amidst the pallid sons of the pavement among whom Guy Oscard had moved of late, this African traveller was a man apart--a being much more after his own heart.

The brown of the man's face and hands appealed to him--the dark flashing eyes, the energetic carriage of head and shoulders.

Among men of a fairer skin the taint that was in Victor Durnovo's blood became more apparent--the shadow on his finger-nails, the deep olive of his neck against the snowy collar, and the blue tint in the white of his eyes.
But none of these things militated against him in Oscard's mind.