Kabanata Kabanata 2 · As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with

. As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with

his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann’s

“Forest Scenes.” “You must lend me these, Basil,” he cried. “I want to

learn them. They are perfectly charming.”

“That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.”

“Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don’t want a life-sized portrait of

myself,” answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a

wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint

blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. “I beg your

pardon, Basil, but I didn’t know you had any one with you.”

“This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I

have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you

have spoiled everything.”

“You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,” said Lord

Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. “My aunt has often

spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am

afraid, one of her victims also.”

“I am in Lady Agatha’s black books at present,” answered Dorian with a

funny look of penitence. “I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel

with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to

have played a duet together—three duets, I believe. I don’t know what

she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call.”

“Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you.

And I don’t think it really matters about your not being there. The

audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to

the piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people.”

“That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,” answered Dorian,

laughing.

Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,

with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp

gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at

once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s

passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the

world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.

“You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray—far too

charming.” And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened

his cigarette-case.

The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes

ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry’s last

remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,

“Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it

awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?”

Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray. “Am I to go, Mr. Gray?” he

asked.

“Oh, please don’t, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky

moods, and I can’t bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell

me why I should not go in for philanthropy.”

“I don’t know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious a

subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I certainly

shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You don’t

really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you liked your

sitters to have some one to chat to.”

Hallward bit his lip. “If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.

Dorian’s whims are laws to everybody, except himself.”

Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. “You are very pressing, Basil,

but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the

Orleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon

Street. I am nearly always at home at five o’clock. Write to me when

you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you.”

“Basil,” cried Dorian Gray, “if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,

too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is

horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask

him to stay. I insist upon it.”

“Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,” said Hallward,

gazing intently at his picture. “It is quite true, I never talk when I

am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious

for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay.”

“But what about my man at the Orleans?”

The painter laughed. “I don’t think there will be any difficulty about

that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,

and don’t move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry

says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single

exception of myself.”

Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek

martyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom

he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a

delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few

moments he said to him, “Have you really a very bad influence, Lord

Henry? As bad as Basil says?”

“There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is

immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.”

“Why?”

“Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does

not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His

virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as

sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an

actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is

self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each

of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have

forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s

self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe

the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone

out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society,

which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of

religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—”

“Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good

boy,” said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look

had come into the lad’s face that he had never seen there before.

“And yet,” continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with

that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of

him, and that he had even in his Eton days, “I believe that if one man

were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to

every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I

believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we

would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the

Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it

may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The

mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial

that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse

that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body

sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of

purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,

or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is

to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for

the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its

monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that

the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the

brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place

also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your

rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,

thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping

dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame—”

“Stop!” faltered Dorian Gray, “stop! you bewilder me. I don’t know what

to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don’t speak.

Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think.”

For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and

eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh

influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have come

really from himself. The few words that Basil’s friend had said to

him—words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in

them—had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,

but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.

Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But

music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather another

chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they

were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them.

And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able

to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their

own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything

so real as words?

Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.

He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him. It

seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known

it?

With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise

psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested.

He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had produced,

and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, a book

which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he

wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.

He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How

fascinating the lad was!

Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had

the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes

only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence.

“Basil, I am tired of standing,” cried Dorian Gray suddenly. “I must go

out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here.”

“My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can’t think of

anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And

I have caught the effect I wanted—the half-parted lips and the bright

look in the eyes. I don’t know what Harry has been saying to you, but

he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I suppose

he has been paying you compliments. You mustn’t believe a word that he

says.”

“He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the

reason that I don’t believe anything he has told me.”

“You know you believe it all,” said Lord Henry, looking at him with his

dreamy languorous eyes. “I will go out to the garden with you. It is

horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced to drink,

something with strawberries in it.”

“Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will

tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I

will join you later on. Don’t keep Dorian too long. I have never been

in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my

masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands.”

Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his

face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their

perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand

upon his shoulder. “You are quite right to do that,” he murmured.

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the

senses but the soul.”

The lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves had

tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There

was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are

suddenly awakened. His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some

hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.

“Yes,” continued Lord Henry, “that is one of the great secrets of

life—to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means

of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think

you know, just as you know less than you want to know.”

Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking

the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic,

olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There was

something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His

cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved,

as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own.

But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had it been

left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known Basil

Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never altered

him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who seemed to

have disclosed to him life’s mystery. And, yet, what was there to be

afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was absurd to be

frightened.

“Let us go and sit in the shade,” said Lord Henry. “Parker has brought

out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be

quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must

not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be unbecoming.”

“What can it matter?” cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on

the seat at the end of the garden.

“It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.”

“Why?”

“Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing

worth having.”

“I don’t feel that, Lord Henry.”

“No, you don’t feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and

ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion

branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will

feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it

always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray.

Don’t frown. You have. And beauty is a form of genius—is higher,

indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great

facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in

dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be

questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of

those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won’t

smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only superficial. That

may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as thought is. To me,

beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not

judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not

the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But

what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in

which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your

beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there

are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those

mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than

defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something

dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your

roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You

will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth while you have it.

Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying

to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the

ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the

false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you!

Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations.

Be afraid of nothing.... A new Hedonism—that is what our century wants.

You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing

you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season.... The moment

I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are,

of what you really might be. There was so much in you that charmed me

that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how

tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time

that your youth will last—such a little time. The common hill-flowers

wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next

June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the

clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold

its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy

that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses

rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the

passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite

temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth!

There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!”

Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell

from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for

a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated globe

of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in

trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make

us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we

cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays

sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the

bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian

convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to and

fro.

Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made

staccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other and

smiled.

“I am waiting,” he cried. “Do come in. The light is quite perfect, and

you can bring your drinks.”

They rose up and sauntered down the walk together. Two green-and-white

butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of

the garden a thrush began to sing.

“You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Henry, looking at

him.

“Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?”

“Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it.

Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to

make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only

difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice

lasts a little longer.”

As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry’s

arm. “In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,” he murmured,

flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and

resumed his pose.

Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.

The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that

broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back

to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that

streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. The

heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.

After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for

a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,

biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. “It is quite

finished,” he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in

long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.

Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a

wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.

“My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,” he said. “It is the

finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at

yourself.”

The lad started, as if awakened from some dream.

“Is it really finished?” he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

“Quite finished,” said the painter. “And you have sat splendidly

to-day. I am awfully obliged to you.”

“That is entirely due to me,” broke in Lord Henry. “Isn’t it, Mr.

Gray?”

Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture

and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks

flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes,

as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there

motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to

him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own

beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.

Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be merely the

charming exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed

at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had

come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his

terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and

now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full

reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a

day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and

colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet

would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair. The

life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become

dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.

As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a

knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes

deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt

as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.

“Don’t you like it?” cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the

lad’s silence, not understanding what it meant.

“Of course he likes it,” said Lord Henry. “Who wouldn’t like it? It is

one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you

like to ask for it. I must have it.”

“It is not my property, Harry.”

“Whose property is it?”

“Dorian’s, of course,” answered the painter.

“He is a very lucky fellow.”

“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon

his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and

dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be

older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other

way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was

to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is

nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for

that!”

“You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,” cried Lord

Henry, laughing. “It would be rather hard lines on your work.”

“I should object very strongly, Harry,” said Hallward.

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. “I believe you would, Basil. You

like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a

green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.”

The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like

that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed

and his cheeks burning.

“Yes,” he continued, “I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your

silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till

I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses

one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your

picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth

is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I

shall kill myself.”

Hallward turned pale and caught his hand. “Dorian! Dorian!” he cried,

“don’t talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I

shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things,

are you?—you who are finer than any of them!”

“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of

the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must

lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives

something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture

could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint

it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!” The hot tears welled

into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the

divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.

“This is your doing, Harry,” said the painter bitterly.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. “It is the real Dorian Gray—that is

all.”

“It is not.”

“If it is not, what have I to do with it?”

“You should have gone away when I asked you,” he muttered.

“I stayed when you asked me,” was Lord Henry’s answer.

“Harry, I can’t quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between

you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever

done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and colour? I will

not let it come across our three lives and mar them.”

Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid

face and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal

painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window. What was

he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin

tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was for the long

palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had found it at

last. He was going to rip up the canvas.

With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to

Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of

the studio. “Don’t, Basil, don’t!” he cried. “It would be murder!”

“I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,” said the painter

coldly when he had recovered from his surprise. “I never thought you

would.”

“Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. I

feel that.”

“Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and

sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself.” And he walked

across the room and rang the bell for tea. “You will have tea, of

course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Or do you object to such simple

pleasures?”

“I adore simple pleasures,” said Lord Henry. “They are the last refuge

of the complex. But I don’t like scenes, except on the stage. What

absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man as

a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man

is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after

all—though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You

had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn’t really

want it, and I really do.”

“If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!”

cried Dorian Gray; “and I don’t allow people to call me a silly boy.”

“You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it

existed.”

“And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you

don’t really object to being reminded that you are extremely young.”

“I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry.”

“Ah! this morning! You have lived since then.”

There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden

tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a

rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.

Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray

went over and poured out the tea. The two men sauntered languidly to

the table and examined what was under the covers.

“Let us go to the theatre to-night,” said Lord Henry. “There is sure to

be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White’s, but it

is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I am

ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent

engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have

all the surprise of candour.”

“It is such a bore putting on one’s dress-clothes,” muttered Hallward.

“And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.”

“Yes,” answered Lord Henry dreamily, “the costume of the nineteenth

century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only

real colour-element left in modern life.”

“You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.”

“Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the one

in the picture?”

“Before either.”

“I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,” said the

lad.

“Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won’t you?”

“I can’t, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.”

“I should like that awfully.”

The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.

“I shall stay with the real Dorian,” he said, sadly.

“Is it the real Dorian?” cried the original of the portrait, strolling

across to him. “Am I really like that?”

“Yes; you are just like that.”

“How wonderful, Basil!”

“At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter,”

sighed Hallward. “That is something.”

“What a fuss people make about fidelity!” exclaimed Lord Henry. “Why,

even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to

do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old

men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.”

“Don’t go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,” said Hallward. “Stop and

dine with me.”

“I can’t, Basil.”

“Why?”

“Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him.”

“He won’t like you the better for keeping your promises. He always

breaks his own. I beg you not to go.”

Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head.

“I entreat you.”

The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them

from the tea-table with an amused smile.

“I must go, Basil,” he answered.

“Very well,” said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on

the tray. “It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better

lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see me soon.

Come to-morrow.”

“Certainly.”

“You won’t forget?”

“No, of course not,” cried Dorian.

“And ... Harry!”

“Yes, Basil?”

“Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning.”

“I have forgotten it.”

“I trust you.”

“I wish I could trust myself,” said Lord Henry, laughing. “Come, Mr.

Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.

Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon.”

As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a

sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.