What Lord Henry had done could have been accomplished only by an Englishman of exceptional intelligence. He had discovered that the almost universal feature of nervous abnormalities in England, which were not the outcome of trauma or congenital disease, arose out of the national characteristic of "consuming one's own smoke." He had been the first to demonstrate with scientific precision that the suppression of Catholicism in England, with its concomitant proscription of the confessional box from the churches, had laid the foundation of three quarters of the nation's nervous disabilities. He had thus called attention to yet one more objectionable and stupid feature of the Protestant Church, and one which was perhaps more nauseating, more sordid, than any to which his friend Dr. Melhado was so fond of pointing. Thus he called his sanatorium in Kent "The Confessional," and his methods, there, followed pretty closely the methods of the mediæval Church.
He would point out that it was this absence of the rite of confession that made people in Protestant countries so conspicuously more self-conscious than the inhabitants of Catholic countries. For nothing leads to self-consciousness more certainly than the attempt constantly to consume one's own smoke.
"The independence, individualism, and natural secrecy of the English character, together with the enormous amount of sex suppression that English Puritanism involves," he used frequently to say, "leads to an incredible amount of consumption of their own smoke by millions of the English people. Large numbers of these people are able to digest the fumes, others fall ill with nervous trouble owing to the poison contained in the vapours they try to dispose of in secrecy."
His startling successes had all been based upon the recognition of this fundamental fact. "But," as he said, "instead of these people keeping well through the ordinary exercise of their religion, they have, owing to their absurd Protestant beliefs, to pay me through the nose for providing them with a scientific instead of a sacerdotal confessional box."
Nevertheless, the hard work was beginning to tell, and as he waited for St. Maur and recalled the circumstances of Mrs. Delarayne's visit, it struck him that it would not be unwise to avail himself of that lady's need of him in order perhaps to take a short holiday.
Truth to tell, he was a little satiated with Society's nervous wrecks. You cannot hold your nose for long over any kind of smoke without being nauseated; but the fumes which men and women have tried to consume themselves, and failed, have this peculiarity, that they are perhaps more fœtid, more unsavoury, more asphyxiating, than any that can be produced by the combustion of the most obnoxious and malodorous chemicals.
St. Maur observed his friend's condition as he entered the room.
"Hard day?" he enquired.
"Very."
"I thought so. Cheques have been coming in pretty plentifully too. Any celebrities?"