“You’ll be out, if it’s Chippinge you are looking to!”
“Why, if you please, my friend? Why so sure?”
Flixton winked with deeper meaning than before. “Ah, that’s telling,” he said. “Still—why not? If you don’t hear it from me, old chap, you’ll soon hear it from someone. Why, you ask? Well, because a little bird whispered to me that Chippinge was—arranged! That Sir Robert and the Whigs understood one another, and whichever way it went it would not come your way!”
Vaughan reddened deeply. “I don’t believe it,” he said bluntly.
“Did you know that Chippinge was going to be spared?”
“No.”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Ah!” shrugging his shoulders, with a world of meaning, and preparing to turn away. “Well, other people did, and there it is. I may be wrong, I hope I am, old chap. Hope I am! But anyway—I must be going. I turn here. See you soon, I hope!”
And with a wave of the hand the Honourable Bob marched off through Whitehall, his face breaking into a mischievous grin as soon as he was out of Vaughan’s sight. “Return hit for your snub, Miss Mary!” he muttered. “If you prick me, at least I can prick him! And do him good, too! He was always a most confounded prig.”