"Yes. Devenish may sell us a pup. He's a deuce of a clever fellow is Devenish. Let him get wind of your partridges, Challoner, and he'll sell us a pup for a sure thing."
"All the more reason we should keep our gathering quiet," said Challoner. He looked round the table with an impatience which had been growing upon him during the last half-hour. "I think that's all we can do to-night."
"About all," said Monro. "There is just this suggestion I would like to make. I know a man whose business is land, and he is most experienced in it; and I thought that if you would like, I would send him a telegram to-morrow, and we could employ him to help us in framing these amendments. He is a partner in Beevis and Beevis, the land-agents in Piccadilly."
"By all means, do," said Challoner. "We all agree to that, don't we? And now let us join the ladies."
He sprang up and opened the door like a man in a great hurry. When he entered the drawing-room, he crossed it at once to Cynthia's side.
"I was sorry, Mrs. Rames, that I couldn't take you in to dinner to-night. I would have liked very much that on your first evening at Bramling you should have come in with me. For, as you know, I somehow associate you with this house."
He looked at her with a very direct inquiry in his eyes. But Cynthia would not respond to it; and he sat at her side with a wistfulness in his voice and his words against which she had a little trouble to protect her heart. But she did, for she was alarmed. When she had met him before he had spoken rather as though he wished that they were related. To-night he spoke as if he suspected that they were.
Mr. Beevis arrived the next afternoon, and for the rest of the week, while the morning was given to the partridges and the amusements of the country, the afternoon and the evening found the Cave busy upon the bill. Amendments were formulated and shared out amongst them, whilst it was by general consent left to Rames to raise the question, first of all, on the Address at the beginning of the session and then to move the rejection of the bill later on when it came before the House upon its second reading. Good progress, in a word, was made, and, to the delight of all, no whisper of this conspiracy crept into any of the daily papers. They were examined anxiously every day upon their arrival at eleven, and laid down with relief. Cynthia could not but laugh.
"I never would have believed that you could have found so many members of Parliament reluctant to see their names in the papers," she said to her husband.
"Yes, it's astonishing what modesty they can develop," he replied.