“Nothing whatever.”
He was on the point of adding, “Only that I’ve been told something about a pair of pretty girls,” when it occurred to him he might be touching on a subject in which his cousin had a tender concern.
“’Pon my honour!” rejoined the latter, making an uphill attempt to laugh, “the tale grows stranger and stranger! You, of the King’s Household, on your way to make acquaintance—friendly, of course—with one of his Majesty’s greatest and most pronounced enemies—a man who hates King, Court, and Church; above all, bitter against your especial patroness, the Queen. I’ve heard him call her a Jezebel, with other opprobrious epithets.”
“Odd in you, Rej, such a devoted Royalist, to have listened calmly to all that?”
“I didn’t listen calmly; would have quickly stopped his seditious chattering, but for—”
“For what?” asked the other, seeing he hesitated.
“Oh, certain reasons I may some day make known to you. Like yourself, Eust, I have some secrets.”
Eust thought he could give a good guess at one of them, but mercifully forbore allusion to it.
“But,” he said, with an air of pretended surprise, “you’ve been just visiting this terrible king-hater yourself, Rej? If I mistake not, you came out of the park. You were up to the house, were you not?”
“I was.”