"In other words, the situation is unchanged, for I think I knew as much as that before. Have you never spoken to Lady Broadhem directly on the subject?"
"No," said Grandon—"never."
"I think," said I, "the time is coming when you will be able to do so with advantage. I cannot tell you more now, but this afternoon I shall hope to retrieve myself in your estimation by being the bearer of some good news. By the way, what are you going to do about your election?—they say your prospects are getting cloudy."
"Say rather utterly obscured," he replied. "You know the borough I sit for is in Lord Scilly's pocket, and he says I have not sufficiently stuck to my party. They have never forgiven me for understanding the Schleswig-Holstein question; and Scilly has extracted a promise from his new nominee that he is never to inform himself upon any question of foreign politics. The Government is so weak in this department that they are more afraid of their own enfants terribles than they are of the Opposition, which is not saying much for the latter."
"Who is Scilly's new nominee?" I asked.
"No less a person than our old friend Chundango," he replied. "It seems Lady Broadhem put pressure upon his lordship in his favour, and he at last consented, though I suspect it was with a bad grace."
"Well, I don't think the Government need be afraid of Chundango on foreign policy, though he probably knows as much as the others."
It required no little effort to reach Bodwinkle's office at 10 A.M. I found that great millionaire in a peculiarly amiable frame of mind. Though two or three of his neighbours had been smashing around him, his superior foresight had enabled him to escape the calamities which had overtaken them; and he was sitting chuckling in that rather dingy alley, from the recesses of which he had dug his fortune, when I entered.
"Ah, Lord Frank," he said, affably; "come to give me some of your valuable advice and assistance in my election affairs, I feel sure. Don't forget your promise about Stepton. I have already given the necessary instructions about that matter of Lady Broadhem's; there is nothing going to be done about it for the present."
"It is just with reference to Lady Broadhem's affairs that I have come to consult you," I said. "You have a pretty extensive Indian connection, I think?"