"Well," replied Gage frankly, "I thought I'd like to see how it felt to be a lord. And," he added pointedly, "I don't care much for the feeling."
"And may I ask," continued the dowager, addressing herself to the bothered and daunted Peckover, "how it was you came to renounce your title?"
"I made it worth his while," Gage explained shortly, determined to be off with the galling honour.
The real Lord Quorn in his corner gave a long whistle of semi-enlightenment.
"I never had it," protested the unhappy Peckover.
The duke, bristling, took a step forward. "Lord Quorn!" he snapped his fingers loudly and contemptuously. "It is no matter. You are at least a suitor of this lady?"
Happily Lady Ormstock saved Peckover from replying to the delicate suggestion. "Not unless he is Lord Quorn," she declared resolutely.
"I tell you," cried Peckover desperately, "I am not Lord Quorn."
"Then you are a fraud," Gage asserted roughly.
"I never said I was Lord Quorn," urged Peckover.