e you incapable of becoming attached to anybody? Without
fishing for compliments, is it nothing to you to break our friendship in
this way?"

Lord Henry, who as usual was curling his mesh of hair with his fingers,
cast a sidelong glance full of meaning at his friend and smiled.

"My dear boy, if it hadn't been for you," he said, "I should not be
here now. Do you suppose it amuses me to investigate the unsavoury
details of every society lady's nervous affliction? Do you suppose I'm
flattered by such and such a Guardsman's encomiums when I have cured his
stammer, or his inability to proceed beyond the letter 'P' when writing
a letter?"

"What is your real purpose in going to China?" persisted the younger
man. "I shan't divulge. Can't you tell me?"

"In the first place, my dear boy," Lord Henry replied, "curiosity. I
honestly want to see how Chinamen have escaped the madness that is
overtaking Europe. Secondly, I have a heart, and I love my country, and
I cannot witness my country's decline. Thirdly, and chiefly,--but this
is a secret,--I feel that now it is the duty of all enlightened Western
Europeans, who have seen the madness of European civilisation, to hasten
to the last healthy spot on earth and to preach the Gospel of
Europophobia,--that is to say, to warn the wise East against our
criminal errors, and to save it from becoming infected by our diseases.
If the world is to be saved, a _cordon sanitaire_ must be established
round Europe and everything like Europe; for Europe has now become a
pestilence."

St. Maur who had been standing at the window with his back turned to his
friend swung suddenly round, his face illumined as if by an inspiration.

"By Jove," he cried, "that is an idea! That is indeed a crusade! I
hadn't thought of that!"

"It is the only beneficent direction in which I feel I can use my
powers," said Lord Henry gravely. "It is, if you will, my religion. I
feel I am called to be a missionary to the East, to preach the solemn
warning against Western civilisation."

"God!" St. Maur exclaimed, "that's an idea with which to fire a
generation. It is a new gospel; a new gospel of sin and the Devil."

"I assure you," Lord Henry rejoined, "the bulk of the men at my club
would not turn a hair at the suggestion. They would simply turn their
papers over, nod significantly at each other, and whisper, 'The fellow's
not all there.'"

At this moment Lord Henry's man, Fordham, entered the room.

"Yes?"