The tone suggested to her mother's sharp ears that something was wrong. "Mr. Sharnbrook has just gone." "He is staying to luncheon?" "No," Dagmar answered. "Mother did not ask him." "He must!" Ethel exclaimed, making for the door. "Ethel!" Dagmar cried, as she sprang after her. Lady Agatha, scenting mischief, turned to Peckover. "Will you present your--friends?" she said coldly. Peckover, roused from the natural preoccupation induced by his position, did so. "Miss Leo, Mr. Leo----" "Friends from the Bush?" Lady Agatha enquired superciliously, eyeing through her "witherers" Lalage's short hair and short dress. "Yes--just so," Peckover answered in his confusion. "What?" roared Carnaby. "Bush? I'll bush you!" "Carnaby," his sister remonstrated, "be calm. Yes, we are just from Australia." "Friends of Mr. Gage's?" Lady Agatha enquired, in a tone of disgusted resignation. "Friends of Lord Quorn," Peckover corrected swiftly. "And of Mr. Gage's, I should hope," Lalage added with an embarrassing show of affectionate insistence. "Ah!" said Lady Agatha, transferring her attention and her glasses to Carnaby, "Lord Quorn's former sheep partner, perhaps?" "What?" shouted the worthy fellow, more bellicose than usual under the influence of the sherry. "Sheep partner?" "It is not necessary," observed Lady Agatha with cutting distinctness, "to speak so loud. I am not aware that any one in the room is deaf." "What," demanded Carnaby of Peckover in a roaring whisper, "does the old lady mean by calling me a sheep partner?" "Hush! It's all right," he replied. "She thinks you are an Australian swell--a mutton-king." "Mutton king?" Carnaby bawled, raising his arm as though to pulverize his insulter. The evidences of his strength had meanwhile attracted Lady Agatha's attention. "Are you," she asked severely, "the person who has been taking liberties with the fire-irons?" "Yes," answered Carnaby with justifiable pride. "I just snapped them to amuse this little wombat." Then, as a brilliant afterthought, he suggested--"Shall I ring for some more and show you how it is done?" "By no means," was the frigid answer. "I should very much object to be shown anything of the sort. And I must request you, if your friends need amusement, to choose some other method of providing it." "All right, don't be alarmed," replied Carnaby, on whom her grand tone was quite wasted. "Winter's coming on and I won't reduce the stock; I've got something more interesting to break than fire-irons." "By the way," Lady Agatha observed, "we saw a strange and not very prepossessing person in the shrubbery by the drive just now. Was he by any chance a friend of yours?" "Not likely, ma'am," Carnaby answered, "unless it was Lord Quorn, and this little wallaby tells us he is in bed." "It was not Lord Quorn," said Lady Agatha.