St. Maur nodded.

"Drive me to the cottage, then," said the elder man, throwing out his arms dramatically, "and get me up to kill!"

St. Maur was interested, and showed it in his glance.

"Don't be alarmed, dear boy," said Lord Henry. "I may have to play a part down at Brineweald."

St. Maur did as he was bid, and the two spent about an hour and a half in Lord Henry's bedroom, sorting out ties, collars, shirts, lounge suits, dress clothes, and boots and shoes.

At last Lord Henry was clothed, and, as St. Maur had truthfully prophesied, looked the very paragon of a well-dressed man. Indeed, not only was the contrast with his usual self so bewildering as to banish all sense of proportion in estimating the splendour of his transformation but the singular nobility of his face, with its wise, youthful brow and deep, thoughtful eyes, also added such a curious piquancy to his fashionable attire, that the general effect was little short of startling. It is always so. Dress your scholar, your thinker, your poet, in clothes that Saville Row has carefully designed and carried out for a Society peacock, and the result is not a member of the _phasianidae_, but a golden eagle. It is as if the art of the tailor or shirt maker were grateful for once to adorn something more than a mere dandy. That depth of the eye, that wise and learned mouth, those intelligent and almost understanding hands, the noble studious brow,--all these embellishments added to the figure of the ordinary man, give a certain finish to well-made garments, which these in their turn impart to the aspect of the scholar; and the result is an effect of completeness which is perhaps the highest product of the fashion, as well as the taste, of any Age.

Perhaps it is because it is so rarely seen that it is so overwhelmingly attractive.

"Are you sure this is right?" Lord Henry demanded, scrutinising his image without a trace of recognition, in the long wardrobe mirror of his room, and lightly fingering a tie that St. Maur had lent him.

"Yes!" St. Maur cried in alarm; "for Heaven's sake don't touch it!"

On the floor lay the young nobleman's portmanteau, partly filled with St. Maur's shirts, collars, and ties; and in a large suit-case sufficient clothes to provide him with decent variety. St. Maur had drilled him carefully in the combination of socks, shirts, ties, and suits, and had gone so far as to pack certain groups of things together, in special sections, so that at Brineweald no mistake should be made.

"You are a marvel, Aubrey!" ejaculated Lord Henry, twisting about in front of the mirror. "I used to dress like this years ago, but I had completely forgotten how to do it."

"It's you who are the marvel," St. Maur exclaimed, contemplating his friend with a critical and approving eye.

They returned to the Sanatorium to partake of a light dinner. The porter stared as he opened the door, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The matron was unusually self-conscious as she received the parting instructions from her chief, and the nurses all turned their heads in Lord Henry's direction as they sped hither and thither, unable to understand the meaning or the object of the strange metamorphosis.

"The gorgeous vestments of the priest are all part of the general scheme," Lord Henry whispered to St. Maur, as he stepped into Sir Joseph's car.

"Rather!" St. Maur cried after him; and in a few moments the car was well on its way.

CHAPTER XII

Except to Sir Joseph, Mrs. Delarayne had revealed nothing about the nature of her journey to Ashbury to any member of the party at Brineweald. Lord Henry's visit was to be a surprise. She wished to safeguard Cleopatra from all suspicion that his arrival that evening might be connected with her indisposition, and contented herself with assuring her child that, having heard that he was overworked and very much run down, she had gone over to him in order to urge him to take a holiday. She merely hoped, she said, that he would be able to follow her advice and come to Brineweald.

The afternoon was spent by the whole of the two households in paying a visit to Canterbury. Under Mrs. Delarayne's vigilant eye, Leonetta and Denis Malster had therefore been very discreet, and as the cars returned in the evening, Sir Joseph was firmly of the opinion that his idol had, with her customary art, slightly exaggerated the attentions which his private secretary was paying to her younger daughter.

Dinner at Brineweald Park was over, the younger people, except Cleopatra, who had gone to bed, had dispersed themselves over the grounds as usual and Mrs. Delarayne, Miss Mallowcoid, and Sir Joseph were sitting on the terrace finishing their coffee, when Sir Joseph's head chauffeur was seen walking towards the steps with his junior, bearing Lord Henry's Gladstone bag and suit-case.

"Where did you leave Lord Henry?" Mrs. Delarayne cried.

"He told me to drive straight to the garage, ma'am," replied the man, "and bring the luggage here by hand."

"Yes," Sir Joseph exclaimed, in the bullying tones he usually adopted with his servants; "but can't you answer a question? Where did you leave his lordship?"

"He left the car at the Brineweald Gate," the man answered, "and said he would take a walk in the grounds, sir."

"Oh, that's all right!" Mrs. Delarayne remarked, and the men moved on with their load.

It was twilight. The lady scanned the stretch of park that lay before her, and discovering no sign of life, turned to Sir Joseph.

"I hope he will find his way," she said.

"Couldn't possibly help it, I should have thought," snapped Miss Mallowcoid.

"Oh, but he's so tiresome sometimes," replied the widow. "He's so incorrigibly absent-minded."

Brineweald Park was one of the largest in the whole of the West Kent districts. Its confines stretched to the straggling outskirts of four villages: Brineweald to the south-west, Hedlinge to the north, Headstone to the east, and Sandlewood to the south-east. Paths cutting diagonally through the Park, at a respectful distance from the house, joined all these outlying places one to another, and the inhabitants of all four villages were allowed a right of way, provided they conducted themselves with due propriety and did no damage. It was a favourite recreation ground for the children of the locality, but it was so vast that it was but seldom a stranger was ever encountered in the grounds.

The house, which was a large white building, three stories high, of Georgian design, stood on an eminence overlooking the whole country-side; and to the south a series of terraced lawns flanked by steps descended as far as the broad drive leading to the Brineweald Gate.

A large wild and wooded tract lay in the direction of Sandlewood, where Sir Joseph preserved his game, and where there were rabbits in abundance; while joining Brineweald to Hedlinge there was a small fast-running stream, called the Sprigg, which at certain points in its course, fell in picturesque cascades, surmounted by rockeries and ornamental foot-bridges. In the neighbourhood of these, on either bank, Sir Joseph had also built seats and bowers, and in the summer these resting-places were the coolest in the whole park.

It was towards one of these cascades that, on the evening in question, Lord Henry idly wandered. The vast and peaceful expanse of the grounds delighted him, and knowing the pertinacity and loquacity of his fair admirer, he wished to have both his walk and his first view of his new abode alone, before presenting himself at the house.

Dimly in the gathering dusk, he discerned the outline of a rustic bridge, and guided by the sound of plashing waters, directed his footsteps towards it. Then above the murmur of the stream he heard the ripple of a girl's ecstatic laughter, followed by what appeared to be high words between two men, and then more laughter, followed by more high words.

There was evidently a party round the bridge, and they seemed to be engaged in a fairly acrimonious discussion. He distinctly heard the words, Inner Light, Incandescence, Spiritualism, God-head, First Cause.

The argument was evidently religious, and it was conducted chiefly by the men, with the rest of the party as audience and occasional chorus.

He approached stealthily. A big dark shadow against the moonlit sky gradually assumed definition on the other side of the stream. And from the depths of that shadow came the voices to which he had been listening.

As he drew nearer, he recognised the shape of a bower in the mass of shadow he had seen, and within it vaguely guessed the form of human faces. It was evidently a large party. He could distinguish at least half-a-dozen different voices.

He stepped on to the bridge, and leant against the rail. There was a momentary pause in the discussion in the bower. Evidently its occupants were taking stock of him. The subject of their argument, however, interested him, and he stood motionless, hoping they would resume. He could have represented but a shadow to them, even though the steadily waxing light of the moon fell directly upon his head and shoulders; and he rightly divined that, as other people besides the inhabitants of Brineweald Park would probably enjoy the right of using the grounds, they could not possibly tell who he was.

Gradually the discussion was resumed.

"What you don't seem to see," said a voice, which to Lord Henry appeared to reveal the arrogance of its owner, "is that your Inner Light is but a vague and vapid abstraction, a mere whiff of the whisky bottle, but not the whisky itself."

Here followed a delighted feminine laugh, full of music and malice.

"And how do you hope," continued the arrogant voice, "ever to be able to build anything upon a vaporous abstraction? What authority can a spook have? What appeal to love, to fear, to reverence, to worship?"

"Come to bed, Gerald!" said a rather sweet feminine voice, which was half-drowned in the general laughter it seemed to provoke. "These discussions never lead to anything, and I'm sick of them. They only disturb your sleep."

"Half a minute, Mrs. Tribe," said another man's voice, which Lord Henry had not heard before, "we have reached an interesting point here. Do let us just settle that!"

"But my husband can only feel these things," continued the soft sweet female voice, "he cannot argue about them. You only laugh at him, so what's the good?"

"I'm not laughing, am I?" said the arrogant voice.

"No, but you make others laugh," persisted the soft sweet voice.

"Leave them to me," interposed a weak male voice, which Lord Henry recognised immediately as that of the Incandescent Gerald. And there was a note so pathetic in the feeble strains of it, that the listener could not help thinking of a hare being overtaken by harriers.