eaking, the position of Endymion in his new life
was satisfactory. He was regular and assiduous in his attendance at
office, was popular with his comrades, and was cherished by his chief,
who had even invited him to dinner. His duties were certainly at present
mechanical, but they were associated with an interesting profession;
and humble as was his lot, he began to feel the pride of public life. He
continued to be a regular guest at Joe's, and was careful not to seem
to avoid the society of his fellow-clerks in the evenings, for he had
an instinctive feeling that it was as well they should not become
acquainted with his circle in Warwick Street. And yet to him the
attractions of that circle became daily more difficult to resist. And
often when he was enduring the purgatory of the Divan, listening to the
snarls of St. Barbe over the shameful prosperity of everybody in this
world except the snarler, or perhaps went half-price to the pit of Drury
Lane with the critical Trenchard, he was, in truth, restless and absent,
and his mind was in another place, indulging in visions which he did not
care to analyse, but which were very agreeable.

One evening, shortly after the expedition to Epsom, while the rest were
playing a rubber, Imogene said to him, "I wish you to be friends with
Mr. Vigo; I think he might be of use to you."

Mr. Vigo was playing whist at this moment; his partner was Sylvia, and
they were playing against Mr. Rodney and Waldershare.

Waldershare was a tenant of the second floor. He was the young gentleman
"who might some day be a peer." He was a young man of about three or
four and twenty years; fair, with short curly brown hair and blue eyes;
not exactly handsome, but with a countenance full of expression, and the
index of quick emotions, whether of joy or of anger. Waldershare was the
only child of a younger son of a patrician house, and had inherited from
his father a moderate but easy fortune. He had been the earliest lodger
of the Rodneys, and, taking advantage of the Tory reaction, had just
been returned to the House of Commons.

What he would do there was a subject of interesting speculation to his
numerous friends, and it may be said admirers. Waldershare was one of
those vivid and brilliant organisations which exercise a peculiarly
attractive influence on youth. He had been the hero of the debating club
at Cambridge, and many believed in consequence that he must become
prime minister. He was witty