Lady Ormstork gave a smile of pitying encouragement. "My dear Lord Quorn, you are not going to allow yourself to be frightened out of your engagement by the bluster of that grotesque little Spaniard?"
"But," he urged wildly. "Spaniard or no Spaniard, I am not engaged."
Lady Ormstork shrugged. "Anyhow, Ulrica is under the impression she is betrothed to you. I have even gone so far as to inform Mr. Buffkin of the engagement, being, as you will understand, responsible to him for Ulrica's well-being. You cannot in honour even pretend to be induced by threats to repudiate it. You have your own reputation as well as Ulrica's to consider. That is why I spoke so straight to the duke this morning."
Her tone was resolute and conclusive. Gage knew not whether to look upon it as a well-arranged piece of bluff or as his dying knell.
"It's all very well," he replied wildly. "I'm very fond of Ulrica and all that. But the traditions of the Salolja family have, from time immemorial, pointed to killing their rivals on sight. There's not much use to either of us in my being engaged to Ulrica if I'm to be shot next minute."
"Even if you anticipated such a contingency," Lady Ormstork replied coolly, "it would not justify you as an English nobleman in jilting Ulrica. It is a point of honour. You see that, don't you, Mr. Gage?" she demanded, suddenly turning to the deeply interested Peckover.
"Just so," he answered with a start. "Only it's poor fun having your wedding and your funeral on the same day."
"I do not," Lady Ormstork declared, "understand such pusillanimity. After all," she urged, "you are man to man. Why should you be more afraid of the duke than he of you?"
"I've no homicidal traditions in my family," Gage explained.
"A jealous Spaniard is the very devil," supplemented Peckover, whose experience of foreign temperament was derived from penny serials and half-crown melodrama.