"Awkward, if you've been fed up on him in town and don't want any more," Gage commented. "Very. He proposed five times at least to Ulrica, and would not take a refusal." "It's a way they have in Spain, I believe," remarked Gage, wondering gloomily how this new development might interfere with his amusement. "Still," continued Lady Ormstork, "as I think I told Mr. Gage, one cannot have the dear girl forced into a marriage, even with a Spanish duke, against her inclination. One cannot blame him, poor man; she is lovely, and altogether most adorable; but from our point of view why should she exile herself in Spain for the sake of a man she does not care for?" "Why, indeed?" assented Gage, wondering what the odds were on the Spanish duke's being a creature of the old lady's imagination. Meanwhile the fatigued Miss Buffkin had come as an agreeable surprise upon the baffled Peckover, and that alert opportunist had lost no time in making the most of his good fortune. "Dear old Ormstork has hooked Quorn down by the lodge," she explained laughingly. "But I expect they'll be up here before long by the look on his face as she fastened on him and he saw me bowling on up here." "Shouldn't wonder," said Peckover with a grin. "Well, if we've got to make him jealous, don't let's lose any time in preliminaries." "Mr. Gage, you are too absurd," Ulrica remarked as she unwound her feather victorine. "Don't see much absurdity in that suggestion, anyhow," he returned. "What's the good of a chance if you don't take it?" "We need not exactly act in earnest," she suggested. "I've always thought that make-believe was poor sport," he rejoined engagingly. "We were getting on nicely yesterday; if only----" "Ah, yes," she continued archly; "there's always an if only----" "If only," he continued, "Quorn wasn't on our track, we need not be in such a hurry to say what's uppermost in our minds. As it is----" His arm seemed, to her alert eyes, to have a caressing twitch about it. "Shall we go out into the garden?" she proposed, by a plausible manoeuvre putting the table between them. "Too many men about, setting the place straight," he objected knowingly. "Safer here, and snugger too, Ulrica!" "Oh, Mr. Gage!" she expostulated, as by a swift dart he got round to her side of the table. "Ulrica," he said seriously, for since yesterday a wild design and hope had taken possession of him, "Ulrica, need you marry Quorn? Tell me, like a dear girl. You don't love him as much as all that, do you?" She laughed. "How do you know? I'm not going to tell you." "It's only for the title," he pleaded, feverishly anxious to arrive at an understanding while the chance lasted. "That's nothing. It can be bought, if you go the right way about it. Ulrica, I don't believe you like him as well as you like me. Tell me you don't. Tell me the truth, dearest."