er garden of mint and
marigold."

"And weep over a faithless Florizel," said Lord Henry, laughing, as he
leant back in his chair. "My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously
boyish moods. Do you think this girl will ever be really contented now
with anyone of her own rank? I suppose she will be married some day to a
rough carter or a grinning ploughman. Well, the fact of having met you,
and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she will be
wretched. From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I think much of
your great renunciation. Even as a beginning, it is poor. Besides, how
do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the present moment in some
star-lit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies round her, like Ophelia?"

"I can't bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest the
most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. I don't care what you
say to me. I know I was right in acting as I did. Poor Hetty! As I rode
past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at the window, like a
spray of jasmine. Don't let us talk about it any more, and don't try to
persuade me that the first good action I have done for years, the first
little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever known, is really a sort of sin.
I want to be better. I am going to be better. Tell me something about
yourself. What is going on in town? I have not been to the club for
days."

"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance."

"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time," said
Dorian, pouring himself out some wine, and frowning slightly.

"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and
the British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having
more than one topic every three months. They have been very fortunate
lately, however. They have had my own divorce-case, and Alan Campbell's
suicide. Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.
Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left for
Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor Basil, and
the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris at all. I
suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has been seen in
San Francisco. It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said
to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess
all the attractions of the next world."

"What do you think has happened to Basil?"