HER LADYSHIP
“YES,” said my uncle, as he warmed himself before the library fire, “a young man of very considerable ability, I think. One might trust old Jonathan Frost to make no mistake about that. He might be led by family feeling—but not led astray! Hard-headed, and ambitious—for himself, I mean, apart from his business, the boy is. He’s different from the old man in that; the old man thought of nothing but his undertakings, he was just the most important part of their machinery. This boy’s got his eye on politics, he tells me. I’ve no doubt he’ll get on in them. Then, with a suitable wife——”
“Lady Arabella—or something of that sort?”
“Precisely. You catch my train of thought, Julius.” Sir Paget smiled his shrewdly reflective smile, as he continued:
“We may regard the Frost family, then, as made—in both its branches. Because my lady, with her possessions and her looks, is undoubtedly made already—indeed, ready-made.
We must move with the times—or at any rate after them. You’ve done it; you’re a commercial man yourself, and doing very well at it, aren’t you?”
“I hope to—after the war. I believe Sir Ezekiel means to keep me at home and put me in charge in London—if London’s still standing, I mean, of course. But I don’t feel it in my bones to rival the kin of Jonathan Frost.”
“Yes—a remarkable family. What do you make of the girl herself?”
“You’ve seen a lot more of her than I have. What do you?”
“Brain above the average, but nothing wonderful. Will very strong—she’s as tenacious as a limpet.”