"Oh, he hasn't told me anything about it. I haven't seen him for a month."
"Eh? I'm sorry to hear that, Edmund. I did hear something about you having fallen out. I hope it's nothing serious. You've always been such good friends, you and William. You're not annoyed about his peerage, are you?"
"No. Why should I be annoyed about it? I should be if I thought he'd bought it—directly or indirectly—as you seem to hint. But I don't think he would do that."
"Eh? No, I dare say not. I don't know anything about it. What are you going to do about shooting this year? You haven't preserved at all since the war, have you?"
"No. William wanted to. We've run the shooting together for some years, you know. He was ready to pay to get it all going again, but I didn't care about that, and I can't afford to pay my share now. There'll be enough birds for a few days now and then, which is all I want."
"Ah, then I suppose that's why William is going off to Suffolk."
"Going off to Suffolk?"
"You didn't know? I thought perhaps that might have had something to do with your falling out with him—cutting himself loose from Hayslope, now that he's more interested in it—or ought to be."
"What we've fallen out about is— But I don't want to go into it; it's a private affair. I've told you that I haven't seen him for weeks, and he hasn't been here as much as usual. I don't know anything about his movements."
"Well, it came to me in rather a roundabout way, though as it happens I can vouch for it as far as it goes. I don't know whether I'm letting out any secrets; but a man I dined with at Brooks's the other night, talking about how the old estates were getting into the hands of—I mean, he happened to mention a place in Suffolk that belonged to a relation of his, and I understood that William was in negotiation for it. Of course I said I knew him, and he'd be all right as a neighbour; but I said that he had a place here, and a property coming to him by and by, and I was surprised to hear that he was thinking of buying another one. However, he assured me that it was so, but perhaps he was mistaken. He certainly said that William had been down to see the place, because his cousin had told him so. Nevill Goring it was—no harm in mentioning his name. I can't remember who he said his cousin was, or the name of the place, though he did mention them both, and I understood him to say it was practically fixed up. You see William is known. People talk about him now, and if he does anything it's known about; often gets into the papers too."