"I'm sure I'm very sorry, my lord," the discomfited Popkiss apologized.

"But as this gentleman did not deny it when I addressed him as my lord, and as we were expecting your lordship to honour my poor house, why, the mistake was only natural."

"That's all right," replied Gage.

"You're forgiven," grinned Peckover.

Wheels sounded under the archway of the courtyard, and Popkiss was glad to bustle out. "I had my doubts about him all the time," he told himself in extenuation of his error. "If I'd seen them both together at first I should ha' known at once that 'tother was the lord."

Meanwhile the two confederates were laughing at each other over the success of the first step on the path that promised to be so pleasant for both.

They composed their faces as the door was thrown open and Colonel Hemyock and the Misses Ethel and Dagmar Hemyock, accompanied by John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook, were ushered in with breathless ceremony by the egregious Popkiss.

"Lord Quorn?" the Colonel inquired in a tone of pompous cordiality.

Popkiss unctuously indicated Gage, who came forward with plausible aplomb.

Then the ladies were presented, and Sharnbrook noticed gleefully the dead-set that lurked in their eyes. His escape, he told himself, was now a.s.sured.

"May I present my friend, Mr. Percival Gage?" the supposit.i.tious Lord Quorn said, as, taking the permission for granted, he brought up Peckover, whom, however, the Hemyock trio regarded a trifle doubtfully.

"Made a fine position for himself out in our part of the world," Gage continued half confidentially, "and has come over to the old country to enjoy the fruits of his good fortune."

The ladies instantly thawed. The golden sun easily gets through sn.o.bbery's thin coating of ice. They looked at his aggressive diamond, excused his vulgar flashiness on the ground of Colonial ignorance, and received his advances with as much gush as was left over from the lavish expenditure on the _soi-disant_ Lord Quorn.

"A millionaire," Gage observed to the colonel, sinking his confidential tone yet a little. The highly starched Colonel became almost limp under such a shower of good fortune.

"I--ah--hope Mr. Gage will do us the honour of staying at Staplewick,"

he said, and there was no doubt that he meant it. "Lady Agatha will be charmed. Any friend of Lord Quorn's will be more than welcome."

So after a few more flourishes, it was settled. Mr. Gage's luggage had unfortunately gone astray, but his costume would be excused that evening by Lady Agatha, and next day a complete outfit, the visitor declared, would be a mere question of the resources of Great Bunbury.

Presently the neglected but chuckling John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook was noticed, and casually, as a matter of grace, introduced. He lost no time in getting on easy terms with his prospective deliverer.

"I'm the tenant of your shooting, Lord Quorn."

"Hope you get good sport?" Gage replied politely.

"Birds thick as cabbages," Sharnbrook a.s.sured him. "I hope you will come out with me and see for yourself. Of course you and your friend shoot?"

"I should just think we did," Peckover chipped in with an eagerness due to the near realization of one of the dreams of his life. Hitherto his shooting had taken place under cover at the rate of seven shoots for six-pence, and the presentation of a cocoa-nut if by luck or markmanship he rang the bell.

That so bucolic and provoking a person as Sharnbrook at present clothed in the contempt woven of familiarity should be allowed to monopolize the distinguished guests by his stupid sporting chatter was intolerable. Accordingly he was promptly snubbed and thrust aside.

Then, amid much smirking and exhibition of the best side of everybody's face, a move was made for the phaeton. Gage surrept.i.tiously slipped a bank note into Peckover's hand, with which, and with a grand flourish, that unexpected plutocrat settled the somewhat exorbitant demands of Mr. Popkiss, and bestowed a liberal guerdon, accompanied by a wink, on Miss Mercy. Then with what excitement and the nearest approach to cheers a country town on a wet evening can furnish the distinguished party drove off to Staplewick Towers.

CHAPTER XII

"It is too bad of you, Ethel. I do wish you would mind your own business and confine your attentions to either old Sharnbrook or Lord Quorn. The way you try to flirt with Mr. Gage is disgraceful. Even you ought to be ashamed of it."

"My dear Dagmar," her sister replied blandly, "Sharnbrook is, as you always said, after finding he preferred me to you, an idiot. Only fit to be a keeper at the Zoo, or curator of a Natural History museum.

Four thousand a year is utterly wasted on him."

"No reason why it should, or should not, be wasted on his wife,"

returned Dagmar shrewdly.

"Lord Quorn," pursued Ethel, "falls to you by right. A coronet, when he can afford one, will no doubt suit your style of beauty."

"Thank you," retorted Dagmar, "I happen to prefer reality to mere show.

Quorn hasn't a penny to speak of, Mr. Gage is as rich as anybody need be."

"He is hopelessly vulgar, and has an unhappy knack of making himself ridiculous," Ethel argued.

"All millionaires are vulgar and absurd," her sister rejoined. "It is expected of them. People wouldn't believe in their money if they didn't bound and make fools of themselves. Mother says Mr. Gage's vulgarity is as good as an auditor's certificate--whatever that may be.

And if he has taken a tremendous fancy to me----"

Dagmar flared up. "What conceited impudence! You want everybody. You are the elder and Lord Quorn properly falls to you. Failing him, Sharnbrook."

"John Arbuthnot," said Ethel dreamily, "has the bad taste not to be very keen, and Gage is."

"Quorn's all right," Dagmar suggested.

"Then you have him, dear," her sister retorted. "Plain Percy Gage is good enough for me."

As Ethel was clearly holding to her point, and that not a point of honour, Dagmar saw that a mere appeal to her better feelings was futile. "Tell you what it is, my dear," she said, changing her tactics. "If you go on like this we shall lose Quorn and the millionaire bounder and old Sharnbrook into the bargain. We must have the coronet and the million in the family."

"All right," Ethel agreed, after a few moments' calculation. "Let's compromise and give each other a fair chance with Gage. Suppose we take it in turns to bring him to the scratch." She took a pack of cards from a box. "Cut for first innings. First knave; two out of three."

"Why knave?" Dagmar objected, "Gage is more of a f--the other thing."

"Perhaps," Ethel agreed. "Anyhow, the knave is the nearest approach to him in a pack of cards' catalogue of humanity."

They began to cut with business-like eagerness. Presently Ethel held up the desired card. "Hurrah! Knave!" she cried exultingly.

From the amiable Miss Dagmar's protracted lips came the sound of an exclamation not unlike that which profane men are said to utter when the last match is puffed out with the pipe still unlighted. "Two out of three," she insisted, and with the next turn cut a knave also. But fate favoured Ethel, who cut the third.

"My first try," she cried.

"Wish you joy of Gage," said Dagmar spitefully.

"Now, Dagmar," her sister protested, "it's a bargain. Half an hour of uninterrupted running."

"All right," replied Dagmar hopefully. "Then I relieve guard, and you turn out. I take up the running and so on alternately, till one of us lands him." "Which shall not be so very long first," she promised herself.

"Let's find out where he is." Ethel, with business-like prompt.i.tude, sprang to the bell and rang it. "Of course," she observed complacently, "whichever of us does not bag Gage will have the reversion of Quorn or old Sharnbrook."

"Of course," Dagmar agreed with a suggested determination that the privilege in question should not be hers. "Fancy Sharnbrook! Ferrets in one's bedroom."