Isaacs shirked it a good deal, and you'd have to keep the lists rather better than he did.

But I fancy you'd enjoy it rather; and," he added, "it will be an excuse for seeing less of some not very nice friends." Wyndham said he would take the post, and went off happier in his own mind than he had been for a long time, and leaving Riddell happier too, despite all his failures and vexations elsewhere, than he had been since he became captain of Willoughby.
But, though happy, he could hardly be elated.

His effort that evening had certainly been a success, but how long would its effects last?
Riddell was not fool enough to imagine that his promise to old Wyndham was now discharged by that one evening's talk.

He knew the boy well enough to be sure that the task was only just begun.

And his thankfulness at having made a beginning was tempered with many anxieties for the future.