Lady Ormstork gave a smile of pitying encouragement. "My dear Lord Quorn, you are not going to allow yourself to be frightened out of your engagement by the bl.u.s.ter of that grotesque little Spaniard?"

"But," he urged wildly. "Spaniard or no Spaniard, I am not engaged."

Lady Ormstork shrugged. "Anyhow, Ulrica is under the impression she is betrothed to you. I have even gone so far as to inform Mr. Buffkin of the engagement, being, as you will understand, responsible to him for Ulrica's well-being. You cannot in honour even pretend to be induced by threats to repudiate it. You have your own reputation as well as Ulrica's to consider. That is why I spoke so straight to the duke this morning."

Her tone was resolute and conclusive. Gage knew not whether to look upon it as a well-arranged piece of bluff or as his dying knell.

"It's all very well," he replied wildly. "I'm very fond of Ulrica and all that. But the traditions of the Salolja family have, from time immemorial, pointed to killing their rivals on sight. There's not much use to either of us in my being engaged to Ulrica if I'm to be shot next minute."

"Even if you antic.i.p.ated such a contingency," Lady Ormstork replied coolly, "it would not justify you as an English n.o.bleman in jilting Ulrica. It is a point of honour. You see that, don't you, Mr. Gage?"

she demanded, suddenly turning to the deeply interested Peckover.

"Just so," he answered with a start. "Only it's poor fun having your wedding and your funeral on the same day."

"I do not," Lady Ormstork declared, "understand such pusillanimity.

After all," she urged, "you are man to man. Why should you be more afraid of the duke than he of you?"

"I've no homicidal traditions in my family," Gage explained.

"A jealous Spaniard is the very devil," supplemented Peckover, whose experience of foreign temperament was derived from penny serials and half-crown melodrama.

"Fact is," added Gage, "what I want is a good time, without any fuss or bother from Spanish dukes or anybody else. I'm willing to do the right thing, so far as it can be done without friction."

"A somewhat shallow, not to say unromantic, view of life," was Lady Ormstork's sarcastic comment. "I must confess it never struck me that the Duc de Salolja carried such terror in his absurd person.

"He carries a revolver on his absurd person," was Peckover's pointed rejoinder.

"Ulrica will under no circ.u.mstances be allowed to marry him, even if she wants to," the lady declared, changing her tone. "I have announced to her father that she is going to be Lady Quorn, and am certainly not going to take upon myself the odium of suggesting that Lord Quorn has been frightened out of the match by the first ridiculous little Spaniard who chooses to flourish in his face his family traditions and a--possibly unloaded--revolver."

"We didn't go into that question," Peckover remarked with a reminiscent shiver.

"The whole business is too droll," said Lady Ormstork with an amused smile. "But of course we cannot submit to the duke's impudent coercion. It is, however, easily obviated. I will take the matter in hand, since you seem reluctant to do so. I am responsible for dear Ulrica's welfare and happiness. It is my business to see the sweet girl does not fall a prey to a foreign fortune-hunter. Yes, dear Lord Quorn, you may leave the matter with absolute confidence in my hands.

You may depute me, as Mr. Buffkin has already done, to deal with the Duc de Salolja."

Gage did not receive the a.s.surance in the spirit in which it was so confidently given. On the contrary he looked more uncomfortable than ever.

"All very well," he said, after an embarra.s.sed pause, "but the more you insist on sticking me up the more he'll feel called on to knock me down. Eh, Percival?"

"Right you are," was Peckover's gloomy response.

"I'll take care of that," Lady Ormstork a.s.sured him.

"He won't go for you; he'll go for me," urged Gage.

"Not he. I'll draw him off," said the lady.

"Suppose he won't be drawn off?" suggested Peckover.

"Trust me," replied Lady Ormstork, grandly confident of her powers.

"Diplomacy counts for much."

"Strikes me it will count revolver shots if we aren't careful," said Gage dryly.

Lady Ormstork drew back her mouth in a pitying smile.

"My dear Lord Quorn! This is unworthy of you," she declared. "Do think of Ulrica. Have you so little regard for her? Is not she--superb creature!--worth a little daring?"

"Certainly," Gage a.s.sented doubtfully.

"All you want to do," continued the lady, following up her successful appeal, "is to show a bold front, and the terrible Duke of Salolja will run away."

"Think so?" asked Peckover, his secret hopes reviving.

"I am sure of it," said their visitor, rising. "There, I am certain you never meant, dear Lord Quorn, to repudiate in earnest your understanding with the dear girl. Ulrica will be the loveliest and most queenly peeress in the kingdom. And with her immense wealth, the alliance is most desirable in every way. Don't give the wretched, preposterous duke another thought. Do, like a sensible man, dismiss him from your mind. And if he should have the impudence to intrude here again show him the door and tell him to go back to his own----"

"Perhaps you'll do that for us, Lady Ormstork," said Peckover, whose restless eyes had been kept on the window. "There he is."

The others looked round with a start. There sure enough was the Duke of Salolja, stalking, with as long strides as his short legs would allow, across the lawn, obviously in pursuit of the fair Miss Buffkin.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

The sight of yesterday's visitor seemed to paralyse both men, and the grim fascination that had held them before now clutched them again.

Gage, who had, under the influence of Lady Ormstork's bitterly persuasive tongue, began to pluck up courage, and to view the magnificent Miss Buffkin once more in a proprietary right, now visibly wilted. He even glanced round at the door, as though meditating flight. Peckover whistled uncomfortably and tunelessly through his clenched teeth; a more elaborate expression of feeling he did not feel equal to. Then they both glanced somewhat helplessly at Lady Ormstork in search of some indication of a plan of campaign.

"Actually intruding here again," the lady exclaimed indignantly, as the duke's purposeful strides took him out of sight behind a hedge of laurels. "If I were you, Lord Quorn, I would not hesitate in ordering him out of your grounds."

Gage did not look the least inclined to act upon the suggestion. "Oh, let him walk about there, if he likes," he replied with a weak laugh.

"Walk about?" repeated the lady warmly. "But he's walking after Ulrica. It is not to be tolerated. I was under the impression that I had given him his _conge_. Lord Quorn--Mr. Gage," she turned fiercely upon Peckover, "as Lord Quorn seems content to endure this intolerable conduct rather than be man enough to protect his future wife from this tiresome person, perhaps you will go and intimate to the duke that his presence is undesirable."

Peckover's reception of the order did not suggest alacrity. "No affair of mine," he protested with a resolution born of care for his own skin.

"Don't believe in interfering in other people's business. My motto is----"

"Motto!" cried Lady Ormstork scornfully. "Is chivalry quite dead, that a lovely girl like dear Ulrica must be persecuted and victimized by an under-sized desperado, and two Englishmen stand by tamely and allow it?"

Notwithstanding this somewhat pointed appeal, the two Englishmen seemed still disinclined to sally out and try conclusions with the Spanish terrorist. Luckily, however, the argument was diverted by the appearance on the lawn of three persons, the duke, Miss Buffkin, and Lord Quorn, all with looks of stress on their faces.

"Ah, here they come," said Lady Ormstork with her teeth set ready for battle. "Who, may I ask, is that person with them?" she asked, lowering her eye-gla.s.ses and turning to the men who were for the moment preoccupied in weighing the merits of the respective courses of standing their ground or seeking a sanctuary in the wine cellars.

"That? Oh, that's Jenkins," answered Gage, wondering what he was doing in the _galere_.

"Jenkins?" Lady Ormstork echoed the name, as though it did not convey very much to her.

"One of my people," Gage explained, in an agony of indecision as to the propriety of flight.