"I dare say it does," responded Gage, "and gets interest out of it."

Lady Ormstork was too busy manoeuvring to get hold of Peckover to notice the joke. Her game was to throw the new Lord Quorn and the fair Ulrica together with ultimate profit to herself.

Peckover, it may be stated, was not wildly interested in the dowager peeress. Not quite taking in the situation, he had antic.i.p.ated that she would hang on to Gage, leaving Miss Buffkin in his willing charge.

But the whole sense of the meeting was against him. Between the grasping old lady and the repudiating Gage, he had no chance.

"Go on!" commanded his friend in a peremptory whisper pushing him towards the peeress.

"Don't you love a winter garden?" that astute dowager enquired sweetly as she annexed him, and then, without waiting for his predilections on the horticultural question, proceeded to arrange for "dear Ulrica" to be personally conducted by Gage. There was no help for it, and Peckover resigned himself to the tolerance of aristocratic age and presumed inanity.

"I can't tell you," Lady Ormstork observed in the cooing tone with which she smoothed over her designs, "how delighted I am to make the acquaintance of your friend, the new Lord Quorn, and to revisit dear old Staplewick. What a charming fellow he seems."

"Oh, yes; he's a slice of all right," Peckover agreed, wondering whence the lady had formed that conclusion, since Gage's behaviour had hitherto shown more signs of being charmed than charming.

"He has," declared Lady Ormstork, "the family likeness. Particularly the nose. I saw the Quorn nose at once."

This was a somewhat trying statement for Peckover, but he manfully repressed all evidence of agitation. "Yes," he a.s.sented, "he's got the nose all right, and a bit of the Quorn lip, I'm thinking."

Looking round as it were to verify the comparison, Lady Ormstork was pleased to see the lagging pair in close and animated conversation.

"Yes, he reminds me of the late peer, particularly when he smiles," she declared with boldness, considering that she had never set eyes on a Lord Quorn in her life, nor been until a week before, within fifty miles of Staplewick.

"Oh, does he?" responded Peckover indifferently, as he suppressed a yawn.

"It will be so nice to come over here often," pursued Lady Ormstork, ignoring her companion's preoccupation. "So delightful for my dear young friend, Miss Buffkin. Naturally to a high spirited girl Great Bunbury is a little dull."

"I should think it would be," Peckover responded.

"Yes," said the lady with a little sigh of relief, "and so it will be such a pleasant change for her to have, so to speak, the run of this lovely park."

"I'm sure," Peckover said with emphasis, "Lord Quorn will be delighted for Miss Buffkin to come here all day and every day."

"How good of him," exclaimed Lady Ormstork, greedily accepting the suggestion. "And I shall enjoy it too, more than I can express."

Peckover was silent as he fell gloomily to wondering whether his desirable lot would be to entertain this suave old lady while his friend flirted with the fair and lively Ulrica.

"My young friend," proceeded Lady Ormstork, "is a really charming girl--what a superb Wellingtonia!--Yes, I see a great deal of her. Her father is not able to take her about, and so she has become almost like my own daughter."

"Except that she doesn't exactly take after you in looks," thought Peckover; but he merely bowed acceptance of her statement.

"You see, her position is quite enviable," the lady continued in her society voice and drawl, "As an only child she will be immensely rich.

Indeed Ulrica has her separate fortune now. I'm sure I may confide in you, Mr.----'

"Gage," Peckover supplied alertly.

"Mr. Gage. Not one of the Shropshire Gages?"

"Not that I know of," he replied, beating down a sporting instinct to claim kindred with that highly respectable, if rural, family.

"Ah! Some of the Worcestershire branch, the Lovel-Gages, were my greatest friends," said Lady Ormstork regretfully reminiscent. "You don't come from Worcestershire?"

"Not straight," he answered.

Lady Ormstork laughed, as she always did when there was the possibility of a joke being intended. "Well my dear Mr. Gage, I may tell you in confidence, as I feel we are going to be very good friends, that one of the reasons I brought dear Ulrica down to this quiet place was to be out of the way of certain fortune hunters who were pursuing her with their attentions."

"I don't wonder," responded Peckover, with a touch of enthusiasm.

"No," the lady agreed. "Apart from her immense fortune, she is adorable. So handsome! and so clever!"

"Yes, she's all that," said Peckover, enviously thinking of what a good time his friend was having, and regretting for once, that he had let the t.i.tle go.

"One person in particular," pursued the dowager, "has given me great anxiety. A Spanish duke, of undeniable family, a Grandee of Spain, and all that sort of thing, don't you know, but very poor, and consequently most persistent. You know what these foreigners are."

"Rather," Peckover a.s.sured her, in a tone which implied an intimate acquaintance with the procedure of Spanish Grandees, rich and poor.

"Of course," the lady continued, "--oh, how pretty that peep is!--of course an alliance with Ulrica would set him, the duke, on his feet again. It would enable him to resume his position and live on his estates like a prince."

"Get a new hat to wear in the royal presence," added Peckover, remembering that attribute of Spanish Grandees which he had read of in the "interesting items" column of a weekly paper.

"He is, I believe, devotedly in love with Ulrica, apart from her fortune," continued his companion. "And of course from the point of view of mere rank and grandeur, the alliance would have been quite desirable. But, after all, an English girl should marry an Englishman, that is my feeling and the wish of Ulrica's father; and so we have come down here to let the storm of the Duke de Salolja's pa.s.sion blow itself out."

"I see," said Peckover thoughtfully, wondering how much of the storm was true, since his last habit of mind was naturally now p.r.o.ne to suspicion and to look askance at unwarranted confidences.

CHAPTER XXVII

"Well, Percy, my boy, what do you tot them up to come to?" inquired Gage jovially as they turned from an impressive adieu to their guests who drove off radiant--at least as far as Lady Ormstork was concerned--at the success of their visit.

"They're all right," Peckover answered somewhat gloomily. Considering the poor time he had had as the medium through which the wily peeress desired to convey certain information to his friend he could scarcely be expected to emulate that gentleman's enthusiasm.

"Right? I should think so," Gage exclaimed with emphasis. "The girl is simply scrumptious."

"I dare say," Peckover returned, with a jealous twinge. "Rather different from our friends at the Moat, eh?"

"Slightly. There's no comparison. She's a real beauty, and full of fun."

"Oh, you found that out, did you?" Peckover observed curiously.

"Rather. This is the sort of Lord Quorn I'm paying for."

"She has a lot of money," said Peckover.

"How do you know?"

"The old lady-bird told me so. Confidential old party. Good as admitted they had come down here to have a dash at you."

"Me?" cried Gage, much interested.