"Oh, but you _must_ come to Coops!" cried the Duchess. "Bishop, he's to come back with me." "Sir," said Herr Dremmel with something of severity, for he was beginning to consider the Duchess forward, "is this lady Mrs. Bishop?" "Oh, oh!" screamed the Duchess, while Herr Dremmel watched her disapprovingly and the Bishop struggled not to seize him by the throat. "My dear Bishop," said the Duchess, wiping her eyes, "I never had such a compliment paid me. The best-looking bishop on the bench--" "_Do_ come indoors," he implored. "I can't really let you stand about like this--" "Thank you, I'm not in the least tired. Go on, Mr. Dremmel." "Sir, can I see you alone?" said Herr Dremmel, now without any doubt as to the Duchess's forwardness. "On such an occasion as this, before we begin together openly to rejoice it seems fitting we should first by ourselves, unless this lady is your daughter's mother--" "Oh, oh!" again screamed the Duchess. The Bishop turned on him in a kind of blaze, quite uncontrollable. "Yes, sir, you can," he said. "Come into my study--" "What? Are you going to take him away from me?" cried the Duchess. "My dear Duchess, if he has business with me--" said the Bishop. "I'll take you indoors first," he said, offering her his arm. "This gentleman"--he glared at him sideways, and Herr Dremmel, all unused as he was to noticing hostility, yet was a little surprised at the expression of his face--"will wait here. No, no, he won't, he'll come, too"--for approaching round the bushes behind which grew the pear-tree the Bishop had caught sight of skirts. "Come on, sir--" "But--" said the Duchess, as the Bishop drew her hand hastily through his arm and began to walk her off more quickly than she had been walked off for years. "Come on, sir--" the Bishop flung back, almost hissed back, at Herr Dremmel. "One moment," said Herr Dremmel holding up his hand, his gaze fixed on what was emerging from the bushes. "Come _on_, sir!" cried the Bishop, "I can only see you alone if you come at once--" But Herr Dremmel did not heed him. He was watching the bushes. "Will you come?" said the Bishop, pausing and stamping his foot, while he held the Duchess tight in the grip of his arm. "Why," said Herr Dremmel without heeding him, "why--yes--why it _is_--why, here at last appears the Little Sugar Lamb!" "The little _what_?" said the Duchess, resolutely pulling out her hand from the Bishop's arm and putting up her eyeglass. "Heavens above us, he can't mean Pamela?" But nobody answered her; and indeed it was not necessary, for Herr Dremmel, gone down the path with a swiftness amazing in one of his appearance, was already, in the sight of all Redchester and most of the county, enfolding Ingeborg in his arms. "Of course," was the Duchess's comment to the Bishop as she watched the scene with her eyeglass up and the placidity of relief, "of course they will conquer us." CHAPTER XI