Oscar seemed to be inclined to do as I proposed.  I appealed to Shaw, and Shaw said he thought I was right; the case would very likely go against Oscar, a jury would hardly give a verdict against a father trying to protect his son.  Oscar seemed much moved.  I think it was about this time that Bosie Douglas came in.  At Oscar’s request, I repeated my argument and to my astonishment Douglas got up at once, and cried with his little white, venomous, distorted face: 

“Such advice shows you are no friend of Oscar’s.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in wonderment; but he turned and left the room on the spot.  To my astonishment Oscar also got up.

“It is not friendly of you, Frank,” he said weakly.  “It really is not friendly.”

I stared at him:  he was parrotting Douglas’ idiotic words.

“Don’t be absurd,” I said; but he repeated: 

“No, Frank, it is not friendly,” and went to the door and disappeared.

Like a flash I saw part at least of the truth.  It was not Oscar who had ever misled Douglas, but Lord Alfred Douglas who was driving Oscar whither he would.

I turned to Shaw.

“Did I say anything in the heat of argument that could have offended Oscar or Douglas?”

“Nothing,” said Shaw, “not a word:  you have nothing to reproach yourself with."[12]

Left to myself I was at a loss to imagine what Lord Alfred Douglas proposed to himself by hounding Oscar on to attack his father.  I was still more surprised by his white, bitter face.  I could not get rid of the impression it left on me.  While groping among these reflections I was suddenly struck by a sort of likeness, a similarity of expression and of temper between Lord Alfred Douglas and his unhappy father.  I could not get it out of my head—­that little face blanched with rage and the wild, hating eyes; the shrill voice, too, was Queensberry’s.

FOOTNOTES: 

[12] I am very glad that Bernard Shaw has lately put in print his memory of this conversation.  The above account was printed, though not published, in 1911, and in 1914 Shaw published his recollection of what took place at this consultation.  Readers may judge from the comparison how far my general story is worthy of credence.  In the Introduction to his playlet, “The Dark Lady of the Sonnets,” Shaw writes: 

“Yet he (Harris) knows the taste and the value of humour.  He was one of the few men of letters who really appreciated Oscar Wilde, though he did not rally fiercely to Wilde’s side until the world deserted Oscar in his ruin.  I myself was present at a curious meeting between the two when Harris on the eve of the Queensberry trial prophesied to Wilde with miraculous precision exactly what immediately afterwards happened to him and warned him to leave the country.  It was the first time within my knowledge that such a forecast proved true.  Wilde,