“I am not even singed. My wings are untouched.”
“You use them for everything, except flight.”
“Courage has passed from men to women.
It is a new experience for us.”
“You have a rival.”
“Who?”
He laughed. “Lady Narborough,” he
whispered. “She perfectly adores him.”
“You fill me with apprehension. The appeal
to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists.”
“Romanticists! You have all the methods
of science.”
“Men have educated us.”
“But not explained you.”
“Describe us as a sex,” was her challenge.
“Sphinxes without secrets.”
She looked at him, smiling. “How long
Mr. Gray is!” she said. “Let us go
and help him. I have not yet told him the colour
of my frock.”
“Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers,
Gladys.”
“That would be a premature surrender.”
“Romantic art begins with its climax.”
“I must keep an opportunity for retreat.”
“In the Parthian manner?”
“They found safety in the desert. I could
not do that.”
“Women are not always allowed a choice,”
he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence
before from the far end of the conservatory came a
stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy
fall. Everybody started up. The duchess
stood motionless in horror. And with fear in
his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms
to find Dorian Gray lying face downwards on the tiled
floor in a deathlike swoon.
He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room
and laid upon one of the sofas. After a short
time, he came to himself and looked round with a dazed
expression.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Oh!
I remember. Am I safe here, Harry?” He
began to tremble.
“My dear Dorian,” answered Lord Henry,
“you merely fainted. That was all.
You must have overtired yourself. You had better
not come down to dinner. I will take your place.”
“No, I will come down,” he said, struggling
to his feet. “I would rather come down.
I must not be alone.”
He went to his room and dressed. There was a
wild recklessness of gaiety in his manner as he sat
at table, but now and then a thrill of terror ran
through him when he remembered that, pressed against
the window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief,
he had seen the face of James Vane watching him.
The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed,
spent most of the time in his own room, sick with
a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life
itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared,
tracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the
tapestry did but tremble in the wind, he shook.
The dead leaves that were blown against the leaded
panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions
and wild regrets. When he closed his eyes, he
saw again the sailor’s face peering through
the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more
to lay its hand upon his heart.
