Lady Ormstork was, as might have been confidently anticipated, as good as her word. Almost every day she brought the fair Miss Buffkin to Staplewick, and on those that were missed the two friends contrived to find an excuse for calling at Cracknels, as the villa, built by a retired biscuit baker, was named. The game was not a very pleasant one for Peckover, seeing that in it the dowager was invariably his partner, nevertheless he continued to stick to it doggedly in the hope that his opportunity for making running with the captivating Ulrica would surely come.
Accordingly he disguised his feelings and the alertness with which he waited for an opening to assert his powers of fascination, making himself the while as agreeable and attentive to the astutely meandering peeress as the nature of her society talk permitted.
"Lord Quorn and dear Ulrica seem to have taken quite a fancy to one another," she remarked one afternoon, tactfully leading the way so as to give a wide berth to a plantation of rhododendrons in the midst of which she had reason to suspect the other pair of promenaders was lingering. "Don't you think so, Mr. Gage?"
"Looks like it," answered Peckover with a sardonic curl of the lip.
"You are his great friend. He would naturally confide in you," observed the lady with a pointed invitation to betray the said confidence.
"Oh, yes. He is very far gone," was the somewhat ill-humoured reply. "No need for him to mention it, so long as I retain my eyesight."
"I am inclined to think," Lady Ormstork observed meditatively, "that the alliance would not be at all a bad thing."
"No?" Peckover, smarting under his confederate's good fortune, would not commit himself to an opinion.
"Don't you think so?" the dowager asked suavely.
"I don't blame old Quorn," Peckover replied, rather crudely. "As to whether Ul—Miss Buffkin might not do better is a matter of opinion."