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Chapter II: 12-22
[...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.
Content of Chapter II: 12-22 [Oscar Wilde's novel: Picture of Dorian Gray]
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Read next: Chapter III: 22-32
Read previous: Chapter I: 3-12
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