“Well, he’d done wonders. He was old and ill. No son! They could hardly refuse it him, could they? The peerage would have been an empty gift without it.”
“Lady Dundrannan! Lady Dundrannan!”
“You’ve got it right now, Julius. Of Dundrannan in the county of Perth, and of Briarmount in the county of Devon—to give it its full dignity.”
“I expect she’s pleased with it?”
“We’re all human. I think she is. Besides, she was very fond and proud of her father, and likes to have her share in carrying on his fame.”
“And she has wherewithal to gild the title!”
“Gilt and to spare! But only about a third of what he had. A third to her, a third to public objects, a third to Godfrey Frost. That’s about it—roughly. But business control to Godfrey, I understand.”
“Does she like that?” I asked.
He laughed again—just a little reluctantly, I thought. “Not altogether, perhaps. But she accepts it gracefully, and takes it out of the young man by ordering him about! He’s a surprisingly decent young chap; she’ll lick him into shape in no time.”
“From what Aunt Bertha said, you and she have made great friends?”