Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow

By the early summer, gossip was bubbling and bursting. Gilbey had left the Clinic and gone home. One political columnist was prophesying that he would soon be back. Elsewhere, rumours appeared that he had already accepted a government post abroad. As for his successor, names were being mentioned, Roger's usually among them, but not prominently, except in one Sunday paper.

Nearer the point of action, we were mystified. Some of the rumours we knew to be nonsense, but not all. Men like Douglas Osbaldiston and Hector Rose, or even Roger himself, were not sure where they came from. Diana Skidmore and Caro's relatives, people who made an occupation out of being in the know, could pick up nothing, or at least what they did pick up was useless. It was one of those occasions, commoner than one might think, when the ‘insiders' were reading their newspapers for enlightenment as inquisitively as anyone else.