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-glasses 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.
By this time the approaching trio had reached the window, inside which
Lady Ormstork stood grimly waiting for them. Next instant the duke had
thrown it open and was with a flourish and a bow inviting Ulrica to
enter. A similar though modified pantomime having been gone through in
the case of Lord Quorn the three at length stood inside the room, with
the irate Lady Ormstork facing them, and with Gage and Peckover within
jumping distance of the door.
"Duke," Lady Ormstork's sharp tone rang through the room like a defiant
bugle-call, "this is most extraordinary, not to say unseemly, conduct
on your part."
The representative of the Saloljas was, however, far too busy in
distributing elaborate bows and extravagant greetings all round to be
in a position to give heed at once to the lady's challenge. In Spain
punctilio gives way to nothing, not even to an angry old lady's
impatience.
Presently when Messrs. Gage and Peckover had been favoured with bows
and compliments into which they were inclined to read their death
warrants, the duke raised the top of his coercive head the whole of his
five feet three inches from the floor and observed blandly--
"Ten million apologies, most noble lady. I am ashamed to confess I did
not hear the remark you did me the undeserved honour to make."
In no wise disconcerted, the most noble lady repeated the remark,
slightly strengthening the language in which it had originally been
couched.
"Ah--h!" The duke's grimace and pantomime expressed deprecation with a
more elaborately hideous vim than that feeling had probably ever been
clothed with before. "Most illustrious lady," he protested, "what
would you have? The state of my unworthy heart is well known to you.
And the heart excuses everything--everything."
The repetition of the last word had a sinister sound in the ears of
Gage and Peckover. With its dire comprehensiveness it seemed to
include their lives in its sweeping embrace.
But Lady Ormstork, with sundry material reasons to influence her
judgment, was far from accepting the proposition. "It does not," she
objected stoutly. "To force your attentions where they are distasteful
is inexcusable."
"It is," rejoined the duke, with the light of battle in his eyes,
"clearly my duty to render acceptable the homage of my affection."
"It is quite hopeless," declared Lady Ormstork curtly.
"I believe not," insisted the duke with, under the circumstances, an
admirable display of assurance.
Lady Ormstork glanced with equal confidence at her _protegee_. "Miss
Buffkin will bear me out."
"Yes. It's no good, duke," said the young lady with discomfiting
promptness. "You are not my sort."
The duke accepted the verdict with a shrug, and at once proceeded to
misread it. "The Dukes of Salolja," he said with a touch of defiant
pomposity, "have never permitted inequality of birth to be a bar in
affairs of the heart."
Lady Ormstork had also her personal rules of life. And one was never
to allow herself to be bluffed out of a possible advantage. "You
mistake, duke," she said suavely. "Miss Buffkin wishes delicately to
suggest that she does not return your affection, and therefore, the
alliance you propose is out of the question."
"I can," replied the duke, in no way abashed, "afford to wait for the
return of my affection."
As he glanced significantly round at the three silent men he seemed a
very monument of determination.
"But," Lady Ormstork maintained, "we do not wish you to wait. There
would be no point in your waiting. Miss Buffkin has made up her mind
to contract a quite different alliance."
"Ah?" The duke opened his mouth wide and emitted an exclamation in
tone and mode of utterance worthy of a surprised hyaena. Then shutting
his mouth and opening his eyes whose light the facial contortion had
absorbed, he added with, to certain of the party at least, disquieting
significance, "Our Spanish proverb says, 'He who buys ground may rest
under it before he can repose above it.' May I, without offence, ask
the ever gracious Miss Buffkin whether you correctly interpret her
sentiments and intentions?"
The ever gracious Miss Buffkin looked as defiant as her questioner--and
much less polite, as she answered, "That's right enough. I'm going to
marry an Englishman, for one thing."
"Ah?" Again the zoological grimace. "Has the radiant Miss Buffkin
honoured any particular Englishman with her much-to-be coveted
preference?"
The question, accompanied as it was, by a sweeping and minatory glance,
had the immediate effect of making two Englishmen in the room try to
look severely recusant and anti-matrimonial.
And under the influence of that fell glance Gage took a desperate
resolve.
Lady Ormstork, who believed in coming to the point where her own
interests were concerned, answered with bold preciseness, "Certainly.
Miss Buffkin is going to marry Lord Quorn."
At the declaration the duke made a face which raised his bristling
moustache till his eyes glared through a fan-like screen of hair, the
real Lord Quorn uttered an exclamation which conveyed no definite
sentiment, Gage turned the colour of the fruit associated with his
name, and Peckover, trying to persuade himself that the discussion did
not touch him, whistled softly through his teeth.
"Lord Quorn!" repeated the duke in a tone of bland surprise. "No.
That may have been. But I fancy, most illustrious lady, you are
mistaken. Milord Quorn has renounced all pretentions to the lady's
hand."
"Lord Quorn has done nothing of the kind," Lady Ormstork denied stoutly.
The duke turned to Gage, polite yet threatening. "Doubtless milord
Quorn will do me the honour to confirm what I have stated."
"Lord Quorn," interrupted the old lady, "will do nothing of the sort."
The duke raised himself on tip-toe and fixed the apprehensive Gage with
his fiercest glare. "Milord Quorn will do so--or lay himself open to
the consequences," he insisted, with a truculent nod of command.
"I--er--of course I--I have no wish to stand in the lady's light," Gage
stammered weakly.
"Light?" echoed Lady Ormstork in a high-pitched voice. "I fancy, my
dear Lord Quorn, we are the best judges of the quarter the light shines
from."
"It shines," observed the duke with grim imperturbability, "from Spain."
"It shines," retorted the dowager with haughty insistence, "from
Staplewick Towers."
"I am deeply grieved," said the duke, "to sound a discordant note in
the symphony of your distinguished plans. But I declare that the
adorable Miss Ulrica shall never marry Lord Quorn."
"I say she shall," retorted Lady Ormstork defiantly.
"She shall not--even if a regrettable necessity should dictate that
there be no Lord Quorn for her to marry."
Thus the duel proceeded; the passes growing hotter and keener every
moment. Miss Buffkin had subsided on a sofa and from her attitude
might have been an uninterested and slightly bored spectator. And all
the while the three men who looked on said nothing, wisely, perhaps.
But their interest in the encounter was not to be judged by their
silence, as they watched their champion's efforts with mixed feelings.
They were, all three, in love with the beautiful Miss Buffkin, but each
was likewise consumed by an intense regard for his own safety.
"It is not," said Lady Ormstork with dignity--and that aristocratic
matrimonial agent could be very dignified when she chose--"the fashion
among English gentlemen to indulge in absurd threats when their
pretensions are rejected. In this country we took leave of the Dark
Ages long ago."
"Absurd threats, eh?" the little duke repeated, with a laugh which fell
chill and jarring on, at any rate, Gage's ear. "We shall see. Yes, we
shall see--those of us"--he glanced fiercely round the room--"who are
alive next week--how far my threats are vain."
"Ridiculous nonsense!" Lady Ormstork exclaimed with a scornful and
somewhat stagey laugh.
The duke bowed. "I have the honour, most illustrious lady, to receive
your ultimatum, and to accept it. It is horribly unfortunate that we
find ourselves diametrically opposed. But so it is; and I have no more
to say--to you, except to bid you _au revoir_, with my most
distinguished compliments."
He bowed very low to her, then to Ulrica, after which with a kind of
fiendish politeness to each of the three men, taking Gage with marked
intention last. "Milord Quorn," he said, drawing back his lips till
his moustache stood up like two wings against his cheeks, "I regret
that my friendly hint has not been taken. You have called the game. I
shall have the honour of playing it--as," he raised his voice, "as my
honoured and distinguished ancestors have always played it."
"Don't talk nonsense, duke," said Lady Ormstork sharply.
The representative of the distinguished and bloodthirsty Saloljas
raised himself abruptly from a bow he was elaborating, and faced the
lady. "A Salolja," he said, with as much dignity as a short stature
coupled with a long nose is capable of, "never talks nonsense."
"If you presume," she continued threateningly, "to annoy Lord Quorn----"
"A Salolja," he interrupted, with a significant smile, "never annoys."
"Or threaten--' pursued Lady Ormstork.
"A Salolja," he returned, with a Castilian gesture of deprecation,
"never threatens. It is only within the last hundred and fifty years
that he has condescended to warn."
"We can warn too," retorted the lady doggedly. "Warn the police."
The duke looked quite tickled. "Most gracious lady," he replied,
showing his teeth in a grin from which none of his male listeners
derived any mirth, "you make me smile. I think the question of your
police we have already analysed, I and the excellent Lord Quorn. If
your graces have no more notable argument to put forth to arrest the
traditions of the Saloljas I will ask your gracious permission to take
my leave--for the present."
He accompanied the last three words with a glance which boded battle,
murder and sudden death to at least one of his hearers. Then, with a
sweeping bow, he turned to the door.
"Stop!" cried Gage in a voice resonant with fear. "You are all making
a mistake. I am not Lord Quorn!"