“The wall round the park is really old.  The one gate in it is Gothic, and I cannot find any trace of destruction or restoration.  But the house and the estate generally—­well the romantic ideas read into these things are often rather recent romances, things almost like fashionable novels.  For instance, the very name of this place, Prior’s Park, makes everybody think of it as a moonlit mediaeval abbey; I dare say the spiritualists by this time have discovered the ghost of a monk there.  But, according to the only authoritative study of the matter I can find, the place was simply called Prior’s as any rural place is called Podger’s.  It was the house of a Mr. Prior, a farmhouse, probably, that stood here at some time or other and was a local landmark.  Oh, there are a great many examples of the same thing, here and everywhere else.  This suburb of ours used to be a village, and because some of the people slurred the name and pronounced it Holliwell, many a minor poet indulged in fancies about a Holy Well, with spells and fairies and all the rest of it, filling the suburban drawing-rooms with the Celtic twilight.  Whereas anyone acquainted with the facts knows that ‘Hollinwall’ simply means ’the hole in the wall,’ and probably referred to some quite trivial accident.  That’s what I mean when I say that we don’t so much find old things as we find new ones.”

Crane seemed to have grown somewhat inattentive to the little lecture on antiquities and novelties, and the cause of his restlessness was soon apparent, and indeed approaching.  Lord Bulmer’s sister, Juliet Bray, was coming slowly across the lawn, accompanied by one gentleman and followed by two others.  The young architect was in the illogical condition of mind in which he preferred three to one.

The man walking with the lady was no other than the eminent Prince Borodino, who was at least as famous as a distinguished diplomatist ought to be, in the interests of what is called secret diplomacy.  He had been paying a round of visits at various English country houses, and exactly what he was doing for diplomacy at Prior’s Park was as much a secret as any diplomatist could desire.  The obvious thing to say of his appearance was that he would have been extremely handsome if he had not been entirely bald.  But, indeed, that would itself be a rather bald way of putting it.  Fantastic as it sounds, it would fit the case better to say that people would have been surprised to see hair growing on him; as surprised as if they had found hair growing on the bust of a Roman emperor.  His tall figure was buttoned up in a tight-waisted fashion that rather accentuated his potential bulk, and he wore a red flower in his buttonhole.  Of the two men walking behind one was also bald, but in a more partial and also a more premature fashion, for his drooping mustache was still yellow, and if his eyes were somewhat heavy it was with languor and not with age.  It was Horne Fisher, and he was talking as easily and idly about everything