Next to his mother--and to the girl of the orchard--the affections of this youth, who was morally backward and immature, but neither callous nor fundamentally selfish, had been chiefly given to a certain Eton master, of a type happily not uncommon in English public schools.

Herbert French had been Roger's earliest and best friend.

What Roger had owed him at school, only he knew.

Since school-days they had been constant correspondents, and French's influence on his pupil's early manhood had done much, for all Roger's laziness and self-indulgence, to keep him from serious lapses.
Neglect any friends of his--and such jolly friends?
Rather not! But as soon as Daphne had seen Elsie Maddison, and he had begged an afternoon to go on an expedition with them, Daphne had become intolerable.

She had shown her English friend and his acquaintances a manner so insulting and provocative, that the young man's blood had boiled.
If he were in love with her--well and good! She might no doubt have tamed him by these stripes.