"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 assented 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 XXXIV 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 _congé_. 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."