himself a Daphnis?

No wonder a boy like this was voted unsociable. No wonder Sandy and
Jock despised him as a muff, and the young ladies deplored his
unaccountably elusive ways. The truth was that Austin simply had no
use for any of them; his life was complete without them, it contained
no niche into which they could ever fit. Lubin was a far more
congenial comrade. Lubin never bothered him about football, or
cricket, or horse-racing, never worried him with invitations to
horrible picnics, never outraged his sensibilities in any way. On the
contrary, Lubin rather contributed to his happiness by the care he
took of the flowers, and the intelligence he showed in carrying out
all Austin's elaborately conveyed instructions. Why, Lubin himself was
a sort of Daphnis--in a humble way. But Sandy! No, Austin was not
equal to putting up with Sandy.

There was, however, one gentleman in the neighbourhood whom Master
Austin was gracious enough to approve. This was a certain Mr Roger St
Aubyn, a man of taste and culture, who possessed a very rare
collection of fine pictures and old engravings which nobody had ever
seen. St Aubyn was, in fact, something of a recluse, a student who
seldom went beyond his park gates, and found his greatest pleasure in
reading Greek and cultivating orchids. It was by the purest accident
that the two came across each other. Austin was lying one afternoon on
a bank of wild hyacinths just outside Combe Spinney, lazily admiring
the effect of his bright black leg against the bright blue sky, and
thinking of nothing in particular. Mr St Aubyn, who happened to be
strolling in that direction, was attracted by the unwonted spectacle,
and ventured on some good-humoured quizzical remark. This led to a
conversation, in the course of which the scholar thought he discovered