Almost everybody has one disciple who looks up to him as master and mentor, and, ill as he was suited to such a post, Evan Haselden filled it for Walter Valentine. Evan had been in his fourth year when Walter was a freshman, and the reverence engendered in those days had been intensified when Evan had become, first, secretary to a minister and then, as he showed diligence and aptitude, a member of Parliament. Evan was a strong Tory, but payment of members had an unholy attraction for him; this indication of his circumstances may suffice. Men thought him a promising youth, women called him a nice boy, and young Sir Walter held him for a statesman and a man of the world.
Seeing that what Sir Walter wanted was an unfavourable opinion of Ruston, he could not have done better than consult his respected friend. Juggernaut—Adela Ferrars was pleased with the nickname, and it began to be repeated—had been crushing Evan in one or two little ways lately, and he did it with an unconsciousness that increased the brutality. Besides displacing him from the position he wished to occupy at more than one social gathering, Ruston, being in the Lobby of the House one day (perhaps on Omofaga business), had likened the pretty (it was his epithet) young member, as he sped with a glass of water to his party leader, to Ganymede in a frock coat—a description, Evan felt, injurious to a serious politician.
"A gentleman?" he said, in reply to young Sir Walter's inquiry. "Well, everybody's a gentleman now, so I suppose Ruston is."
"I call him an unmannerly brute," observed Walter, "and I can't think why mother and Marjory are so civil to him."
Evan shook his head mournfully.
"You meet the fellow everywhere," he sighed.
"Such an ugly mug as he's got too," pursued young Sir Walter. "But Marjory says it's full of character."
"Character! I should think so. Enough to hang him on sight," said Evan bitterly.
"He's been a lot to our place. Marjory seems to like him. I say, Haselden, do you remember what you spoke of after dinner at the Savoy the other day?"
Evan nodded, looking rather embarrassed; indeed he blushed, and little as he liked doing that, it became him very well.