Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow

Next morning, headlines, questions in the papers: rumours in Whitehall. Beyond the windows, the February sky was clear and crystalline. In my office, the scrambled, yellow corded telephone kept ringing. No message from Roger had reached the Prime Minister's secretary.

Collingwood was reported to have said: ‘This dance will no further go. ' (The only historical reference the old man knew, said a cultivated voice at the other end of the wire.) He was said to be bearing Roger no malice, to be speaking of him with dispassion. He had heard – this I did not know for certain until later – about Roger and his nephew's wife. He took the news with stony lack of concern. ‘I regard that as irrelevant,' he said. He turned out to have no feeling whatsoever for his nephew. That had been one of the unrealistic fears.