“If any one else would give you food and pocket money.”
“There’s that, of course,” said Godfrey. “But what I was thinking of is the daughter. There is a daughter and she ought to have a tidy little pile. Now do you think it would be worth my while to marry into a family like that for forty thou.? Clithering ought to run to forty thou., with the title in sight. I wonder if you would mind sounding him, Excellency?”
“At present,” I said, “I’m arranging about the fate of Belfast, which is rather an important matter in some ways. But—”
Godfrey did not seem to care much about the fate of Belfast.
“I suppose,” he said, “that it really is settled about Marion and that fellow Power.”
“Quite,” I said; “they’re to be married at once.”
“Then I think, Excellency, if you don’t mind speaking to old Clithering—I wouldn’t like to commit myself until I was pretty sure of the money. There’s only one daughter, so he can hardly offer less than forty thou.”
I fully intended to tell Godfrey what I thought of him; but words were not easy to find. I was still searching for a noun to go along with “damnable” when Clithering came back. He seemed greatly excited.
“The Prime Minister,” he blurted out, “is quite ready—He says he has no objection—In fact it’s what we’ve been trying to do all along. Our Home Rule Bill was simply an attempt—”
“Do try to be coherent,” I said. “What did the Prime Minister say?”