Heathcote Mountford went with his cousins to London, and when he had taken them to their house, returned to his chambers in the Albany. They were very nice rooms. I do not know why an unmarried man’s lodging should be called chambers, but it does not make them at all different from other rooms which are not dignified by that name. They were very comfortable, but not very orderly, with numbers of books about, and a boot or two now and then straying where it had no right to be, but also with the necessary curiosities and prettinesses which are now part of the existence of every well-bred person, though these were not shown off to the full advantage, but lost among a good deal of litter scattered here and there. He was not a man who put his best foot foremost in any way, but let his treasures lie about, and permitted his own capacities and high qualities to go to rust under the outside covering of indifference and do-nothingness. It had never been necessary to him to do anything. He had very little ambition, and whatever zeal for enjoyment had been in his life, had been satisfied and was over. He had wandered over a great part of the earth, and noticed many things in a languid way, and then he had come home and gone to his chambers, and, unpacking the treasures which, like everybody else, he had taken some trouble to ‘pick up’ here and there, suffered them to lie about among all sorts of trifling things. He had Edward to care for, his younger brother, who made a rush upon him now and then, from school first, and then from Sandhurst, always wanting money, and much indulgence for his peccadilloes and stupidities: but no one else who took any interest in himself or his possessions: and Edward liked a cigar far better than a bronze, and among all his brother’s possessions, except bank notes and stray sovereigns, or an occasional cheque when he had been more extravagant than usual, cared for nothing but the French novels, which Heathcote picked up too, not because he liked them much, but because everybody did so--and Edward liked them because they were supposed to be so wrong. Edward was not on the whole an attractive boy. He had a great many tastes and a great many friends who were far from agreeable to his brother, but he was the only real ‘object in life’ to Heathcote, who petted him much and lectured him as little as was possible. There seemed to be scarcely any other point at which his own contemplative, inactive existence touched the practical necessities of life.