“Buff and Blue,” Vaughan answered.
“Right; sir,” the voice rejoined briskly. The door opened wide and Vaughan passed in. He found himself in a small walled garden smothered in lilac and laburnum, and shaded by two great chestnut trees already so fully in leaf as to hide the house to which the garden belonged.
The person who had admitted him, a very small, very neat gentleman in a high-collared blue coat and nankeen trousers, with a redundant soft cravat wound about his thin neck, bowed low. “Happy to see you, Mr. Vaughan,” he chirped. “I am Mr. Pybus, his lordship’s man of business. Happy to be the intermediary in so pleasant a matter.”
“I hope it may turn out so,” Vaughan replied drily. “You wrote me a very mysterious note.”
“Can’t be too careful, sir,” the little man, who was said to model himself upon Lord John Russell, answered with an important frown. “Can’t be too careful in these matters. You’re watched and I am watched, sir.”
“I dare say,” Vaughan replied.
“And the responsibility is great, very great. May I——” he continued, pulling out his box, “but I dare say you don’t take snuff?”
“No.”
“No? The younger generation! Just so! Many of the young gentry smoke, I am told. Other days, other manners! Well—we know of course what happened last night. And I’m bound to say, I honour you, Mr. Vaughan! I honour you, sir.”
“You can let that pass,” Vaughan replied coldly.