The two younger brothers were mere
boys, still under Pere Yvon's charge, for he acted as tutor to them as
well as chaplain; but Leon de Thorens was a young man of
five-and-twenty, only a year or two younger than the baron. He was a
fine, handsome man, tall and thin, with his mother's fine black eyes and
small well-cut nose and mouth. He was of a bold, reckless nature, full
of animal spirits, the very life of the house when he was at home, which
was seldom, as he owned a yacht, in which he spent a great deal of his
time. He was his mother's favourite son, and both he and she had often
privately regretted that he was not the eldest.
The baron was smaller and fairer than Leon, and not so handsome, though
there was a strong family likeness between the brothers. He was of a
quieter disposition, and his restlessness took an intellectual rather
than a physical form, his wanderings being confined to the shelves of
the valuable library which the chateau boasted, instead of extending
over the seas on which Leon spent so much of his time.
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