[...12] 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 colored 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 shaking him by the hand. "My aunt has
often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favorites, 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 her 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 candor 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. He was made to be
worshipped.
"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.
Hallward had been busy mixing his colors and getting his brushes ready.
He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last [13] 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. But I certainly
will 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-by, 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 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?"
Hallward 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
exception of myself."
Dorian 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 Hallward. 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 [14] 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 Hallward, 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 his life out 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 mediaevalism, and return to the
Hellenic ideal,--to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal,
it may be. But the bravest man among 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!" murmured 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
impulses were at work within him, and 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 yet 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 a new
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! [15] 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-colored to him. It
seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known
it?
Lord Henry watched him, with his sad smile. 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,
which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he
wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through the same 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 come 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 I don't think I believe anything he has told me."
"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him with his
dreamy, heavy-lidded eyes. "I will go out to the garden with you. It
is horridly 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.
[16] "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 creature. 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-colored face and worn expression interested him. There was
something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.
His cool, white, flower-like 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 then 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 school-boy, 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 let yourself become sunburnt. It would be very unbecoming to you."
"What does it matter?" cried Dorian, 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 now 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 one 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. 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 really to
live. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you
will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left [17] 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.
"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,
which are the 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, what you really might be. There was so much about 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 golden 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 have 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 did not dare 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 fretted purple 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 it 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 Hallward appeared at the door of the studio, and made frantic
signs for them to come in. They turned to each other, and smiled.
"I am waiting," cried Hallward. "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 end 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?"
[18] "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 forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The
only difference between a caprice and a life-long 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 upon 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 Hallward stepped back now and
then to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that
streamed through the open door-way 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 smiling. "It is quite
finished," he cried, at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in
thin 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.--"Mr. Gray,
come 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 Hallward. "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 exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed
at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had
come Lord Henry, 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 colorless, 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 ignoble, hideous,
and uncouth.
[19] As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck like a knife
across him, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His
eyes deepened into amethyst, and a mist of tears came across them. 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, and 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."
"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 horrid, and
dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be
older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other
way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that
were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes,
there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!"
"You would hardly care for that arrangement, Basil," cried Lord Henry,
laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on you."
"I should object very strongly, Harry."
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."
Hallward stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like
that. What had happened? He seemed almost 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 is perfectly right. Youth
is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I
will 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?"
"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 was 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 if he was praying.
"This is your doing, Harry," said Hallward, bitterly.
[20] "My doing?"
"Yes, yours, and you know it."
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray,--that
is all," he answered.
"It is not."
"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"
"You should have gone away when I asked you."
"I stayed when you asked me."
"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 color? I will
not let it come across our three lives and mar them."
Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and looked at him
with pallid face and tear-stained eyes, as he walked over to the deal
painting-table that was set beneath the large 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 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 he 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 Hallward,
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? Tea is the only simple
pleasure left to us."
"I don't like simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "And 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 do."
"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I will 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 mind being called a boy."
"I should have minded very much this morning, Lord Henry."
"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then."
There came a knock to the door, and the butler entered with the
tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a [21]
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 the tea out. 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 and 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 the surprise of candor."
"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 our day is
detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only
color-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."
Basil Hallward bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the
picture. "I will stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.
"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, running
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,"
said Hallward. "That is something."
"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" murmured Lord Henry.
"And, after all, it is purely a question for physiology. It has
nothing to do with our own will. It is either an unfortunate accident,
or an unpleasant result of temperament. 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, really."
"Why?"
"Because I have promised Lord Henry to go with him."
"He won't like you 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.
[22] "I must go, Basil," he answered.
"Very well," said Hallward; and he walked over and laid his cup down on
the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had
better lose no time. Good-by, Harry; good-by, Dorian. Come and see me
soon. Come to-morrow."
"Certainly."
"You won't forget?"
"No, of course not."
"And . . . Harry!"
"Yes, Basil?"
"Remember what I asked you, when 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-by, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon."
As the door closed behind them, Hallward flung himself down on a sofa,
and a look of pain came into his face.