"Yes," she proceeded. "I think I told you—or was it Mr. Gage?—of a very persistent suitor of dear Ulrica's, the Duke of Salolja, a fiery Spaniard, who had been paying her great attention in town last season. In fact it was mainly to escape his importunities that we came down here."
"Oh, then you didn't come to see Staplewick?" he observed, between chafing and chaffing.
"That was my object," the lady maintained with dignity. "And I brought dear Ulrica with me to Great Bunbury as to a sanctuary where we could be safe from the duke. Judge, then, of our embarrassment when, driving up the High Street, we saw him coming from the station."
"Awkward, if you've been fed up on him in town and don't want any more," Gage commented.
"Very. He proposed five times at least to Ulrica, and would not take a refusal."
"It's a way they have in Spain, I believe," remarked Gage, wondering gloomily how this new development might interfere with his amusement.
"Still," continued Lady Ormstork, "as I think I told Mr. Gage, one cannot have the dear girl forced into a marriage, even with a Spanish duke, against her inclination. One cannot blame him, poor man; she is lovely, and altogether most adorable; but from our point of view why should she exile herself in Spain for the sake of a man she does not care for?"
"Why, indeed?" assented Gage, wondering what the odds were on the Spanish duke's being a creature of the old lady's imagination.
Meanwhile the fatigued Miss Buffkin had come as an agreeable surprise upon the baffled Peckover, and that alert opportunist had lost no time in making the most of his good fortune.
"Dear old Ormstork has hooked Quorn down by the lodge," she explained laughingly. "But I expect they'll be up here before long by the look on his face as she fastened on him and he saw me bowling on up here."