At the startling declaration the duke swung round and eyed Gage with a glance that seemed capable of penetrating an inch board. Lady Ormstork, surprised for a moment out of her transcendent self-possession, stared aghast at the object of her designs; Ulrica looked half astonished and half relieved; Peckover's mien was one of abject discomfiture; while Quorn's showed grim expectation. "Not Lord Quorn?" screamed Lady Ormstork incredulously. "So? Not Lord Quorn?" repeated the duke, prepared to resume the aggressive. "No, I'm not," Gage declared stoutly. "If I ever was, I've had enough of it. But I never was by rights." "Not Lord Quorn by rights?" gasped Lady Ormstork. "Never. At least never no more. So you'll please to consider me out of this little complication." "This," observed the duke, truculently thoughtful, "is very singular." "Very," Lady Ormstork agreed. "One would like to have some explanation of such an extraordinary statement." "We must know how we stand," said the duke, who had assumed the attitude of a stunted bravo. "I tell you," Gage maintained, "I am no more Lord Quorn than you are." There was a short silence. Then Lady Ormstork demanded pointedly, "Then who, may I ask, is Lord Quorn?" Gage indicated the unwilling Peckover. "This is Lord Quorn. I am plain Peter Gage." Quorn, the real Quorn, laughed scornfully, and seemed to see light. Miss Buffkin clapped her hands. "You Lord Quorn? How lovely!" she exclaimed, beaming at Peckover. "Aha! So you are Lord Quorn?" cried the duke transferring to that person his highly undesirable attention. "No, I'll be hanged if I am," protested the abnegating Peckover. "You'll be shot if you are," observed Gage half aloud, with a glance at the highly-stoked little Spaniard, who stood pulling his quill-like moustaches, and whose unswerving glance confirmed the forecast. Ulrica had jumped up. "There, we've settled it already, dear Lady Ormstork," she cried. "Isn't it lucky!" "Lucky?" echoed Lady Ormstork, rather non-plussed. "Yes," Ulrica assured her. "We've settled it between ourselves. I like him. He's my sort." From the duke came a deep, rumbling "Oom!" as a grim commentary on the reshuffle of the position. "But I'm not Lord Quorn," Peckover urged vehemently, beginning to be seriously alarmed. "You are!" maintained Gage. "One of you must be," said the duke, as though merely anxious not to make a mistake in the selection of his victim. "Not me!" To such a state of poverty was Peckover's vocabulary reduced. "Oh, Percival!" Ulrica exclaimed reproachfully. "Don't deny it." "He can't," declared Gage, under the influence of the baleful Salolja eyes and moustaches which dominated the scene. "May I ask," said Lady Ormstork with dignified severity, "how you came to call yourself Lord Quorn?" "Well," replied Gage frankly, "I thought I'd like to see how it felt to be a lord. And," he added pointedly, "I don't care much for the feeling."