There was the clever boy, the athletic boy, the merely pleasant boy; these and the combinations arrived at from these types were the output.

There was no use for others.
Then had succeeded those three nightmare years in the Guards, where, with his more mature power of observation, he had become more actively conscious of his inability to take his place on any of the recognised platforms.

And all the time, like an owl on his solitary perch, he had gazed out lonelily, while the other birds of day, too polite to mock him, had merely passed him by.

One such, it is true--his cousin--had sat by him, and the poor owl's heart had gone out to him.

But even Francis, so he saw now, had not understood.