"Yes, m'lord."

"Did she say anything?"

"Her ladyship said she would wait, my lord, as she had something very important to tell your lordship."

"Ah," Gage said knowingly. "Did she wait long?"

"Her ladyship and Miss Buffkin are in the drawing-room, my lord."

The cigarette fell from Gage's parted lips, thrust out by a profane charge which exploded behind it.

"In the----" he turned helplessly to Peckover.

"Percival, old man, they're waiting for us," he gasped.

"Anybody else?" Peckover inquired of Bisgood, with a vision of a pair of terrific eyes backed by a bald head and set off in front by a long nose and a gleaming revolver barrel.

"No one else, sir," Bisgood answered with as much surprise as that functionary ever permitted himself.

"Better scoot, eh?" suggested Peckover in a panic-stricken whisper, as the butler left them.

"No. Let's go and hear what the old bird has to say," Gage replied, after a few moment's hesitation. "If any one is equal to tackling that Spanish nuisance she's the person. Let's go and hear how she takes it."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Lady Ormstork received them with pleasure tinged with just a shade of vexation. "We were so disappointed at not finding you at home to-day of all days," she exclaimed. "We heard this morning of an absurd misunderstanding which we were anxious to set right without delay. And we have been waiting nearly four hours."

"You've had tea?" Gage suggested, somewhat beside the point.

"Oh, yes, thank you," Miss Buffkin a.s.sured him.

"We heard casually," pursued Lady Ormstork, "that you had gone to call at the Moat, and naturally expected you would be back soon. But no doubt,"--this with a world of spiteful significance--"Lady Agatha Hemyock made a point of keeping you there as long as she could. I know her."

"Of course," said Gage gallantly, ignoring the suggestion, "if we had known you were waiting we should have been back long ago."

"Not if Lady Agatha knew it," was the tart reply. "But never mind about that hateful woman. I have waited to see you on a more important subject."

She glanced at Miss Buffkin, who rose with an amused face and sauntered to the window. "I'll take a turn among the flowers while you are telling the tale, Lady Ormstork," she said casually. "I'm getting a little tired of it."

Both men looked longingly after her as she strolled across the lawn, but a consuming anxiety to hear the latest news of the duke curbed the desire to invent an excuse for making after her.

"The Duke of Salolja, tiresome person," Lady Ormstork began, "called at The Cracknels this morning, and upset us very much by telling us of a visit he had the impudence to pay you last evening."

"Yes; we had a pleasant hour of him here," said Gage, grimly reminiscent.

"He tells me," proceeded the lady in a tone of righteous anger, "that he has, in the most unwarrantable manner, suggested the existence of an engagement between himself and dear Ulrica. Is that so?"

"He suggested that he wasn't going to allow anybody else to be engaged to her," Peckover replied.

"Most improper!" commented Lady Ormstork. "And most unwarranted. Dear Ulrica detests him. But he is most absurdly persistent."

"Yes, he's a bit of a nailer," Peckover agreed feelingly.

"Was he very rude?" the lady inquired.

"No, he was polite; the most confoundedly polite cuss I ever encountered," answered Gage.

"I'm glad to hear that," said Lady Ormstork. "And so your interview, preposterous as it was on his part, was quite amicable?"

For a moment neither man felt equal to answering the question. Then Peckover said, "Quite amicable, only a touch one-sided. You see, it don't exactly pay to be nasty when a fellow's sitting over you with a revolver."

Lady Ormstork threw up her hands. "A revolver? Ridiculous person!

Really--I hope you told the foolish man that that sort of thing was quite out of date."

"The revolver wasn't though," objected Peckover with a reminiscent shiver. "It looked quite new, with all the latest improvements and in first-cla.s.s working order."

"Really?" cried the lady incredulously.

"As far as we could judge. Didn't want any closer inspection. I'm content to take a revolver's business capacity for granted."

"But surely," remarked Lady Ormstork with an amused curl of the lip, "you don't mean to say that you allowed this droll Salolja to alarm you?"

The men glanced at each other with long faces.

"We weren't exactly sorry when he said good-bye," was Gage's evasive answer.

"Oh, but this is too absurd," protested the lady.

"The funny side wasn't exactly turned to us last night," said Peckover.

"I have," proceeded Lady Ormstork coolly, "told the duke he is making himself ridiculous."

"And how did he take it?" Gage inquired with considerable curiosity.

The lady shrugged. "It is hopeless to argue with that sort of person.

And naturally dear Ulrica is, from every point of view, a girl whom even a duke would find it difficult to give up hopes of. But her father, a man of great discernment and determination would never hear of such an alliance. A foreign t.i.tle does not appeal to him. So, my dear Lord Quorn, you need have no fears that Ulrica is in any danger of becoming d.u.c.h.esse de Salolja."

This was pretty direct speaking. "It would be a pity," Gage agreed warily, "if Miss Buffkin should be coerced into a distasteful marriage."

"There is," replied Lady Ormstork resolutely, "no chance of that. I have told the duke so in unmistakable language. And I also gave him a piece of my mind with regard to his uncalled-for interference between Ulrica and yourself. He had the impudence to suggest that you were at his bidding ready to break off your understanding with Ulrica and relinquish her to him. To him! To a man whom she detests, I simply laughed at him, as I hoped you had laughed too."

Gage started up. "You didn't tell him I was engaged to Ul--to Miss Buffkin?" he gasped.

"Naturally I did," was the composed answer.

"But--but I'm not," he protested.