He greeted the
visitor with somewhat excessive warmth, then turned and introduced
his companion, by the name of Mr. Rudge.
Waymark observed that this gentleman and his hostess were on terms
of lively intimacy. They talked much throughout the evening.
During the three months that followed, Waymark's intercourse with
the Enderbys was pretty frequent. Mrs. Enderby asked few questions
about him, and Maud was silent after she had explained Waymark's
position, so far as she was acquainted with it, and how she had come
to know him. To both parents, the fact of Maud's friendship was a
quite sufficient guarantee, so possessed were they with a conviction
of the trustworthiness of her judgment, and the moral value of her
impulses. In Waymark's character there was something which women
found very attractive; strength and individuality are perhaps the
words that best express what it was, though these qualities would
not in themselves have sufficed to give him his influence, without a
certain gracefulness of inward homage which manifested itself when
he talked with women, a suggestion, too, of underlying passion which
works subtly on a woman's imagination. There was nothing commonplace
in his appearance and manner; one divined in him a past out of the
ordinary range of experiences, and felt the promise of a future
which would, in one way or another, be remarkable.
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