his mind. It was clear that Mrs. Delarayne could not have
understood the man she was dealing with; or, if she had, she must have
urged this step as a last hope.

As a forlorn hope it certainly appeared to Sir Joseph, and it was only
half-heartedly that he opened the attack.

"And now tell me about China," he said. "Have you quite made up your
mind?"

Lord Henry rose, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and
paced the hearth-rug.

"I think so," he replied, musing deeply as he glanced from one to the
other of Sir Joseph's art treasures.

"But you are doing good here," the baronet protested feebly. "What good
will you do in China?"

"I'm not convinced that I am doing good here," Lord Henry rejoined
sharply. "That's precisely the point."

"But everybody says you are."

"No doubt."

Sir Joseph turned to his ivory paper-knife. He did not understand.

"If it's doing good," Lord Henry added, "to salve the nervous wreckage
that our unspeakable Western civilisation produces with every
generation; if it's doing good to render the disastrous mess which we
have made of human life possible for a few years longer, by bringing
relief to the principal victims of it; then, indeed, I am a desirable
member of society. But I question the whole thing. I question very much
whether it can be doing good to help this hopeless condition of things
to last one moment longer than it need."

Sir Joseph glanced up a little anxiously. "Are you serious?" he
enquired.

Lord Henry sat down again.

"Am I serious?" he scoffed. "Can you be serious, can you be sane, and
expect me to think otherwise? But you have been a great success by means
of the very system which is rotten and iniquitous to the core. How could
you sympathise?"

Sir Joseph stammered hopelessly that he was trying to sympathise.

"You are no doubt convinced," Lord Henry continued, "that all you are
witnessing to-day is what you would call Progress. And the further we
recede from a true understanding of human life and its most vital needs,
and the more we complicate the world and increase its machinery, the
more persuaded you become of the reality of your illusion. How could it
be otherwise?"

Sir Joseph expostulated ineffectually, and Lord Henry continued:

"Still, I am not a reformer," he said. "I do not wish to reform, even if
I could. It is not only too late, things are also too desperate. What I
chiefly want is to take refuge somewhere where humanity and