"With all my heart. But, though you may help me, how can I help you?"
"You have helped me already to Frank Hazeldean—and the Casino estate. All clever men can help me. Come, then, we are friends; and what I say is secret. You ask me why I think there will be a general election so soon? I will answer you frankly. Of all the public men I ever met with, there is no one who has so clear a vision of things immediately before him as Audley Egerton."
"He has that character. Not far-seeing, but clear-sighted to a certain limit."
"Exactly so. No one better, therefore, knows public opinion, and its immediate ebb and flow."
"Granted."
"Egerton, then, counts on a general election within three months; and I have lent him the money for it."
"Lent him the money! Egerton borrow money of you—the rich Audley Egerton!"
"Rich!" repeated Levy in a tone impossible to describe, and accompanying the word with that movement of the middle finger and thumb, commonly called a "snap," which indicates profound contempt.
He said no more. Randal sate stupified. At length the latter muttered, "But if Egerton is really not rich—if he lose office, and without the hope of return to it——"