“I hope not,” said Dorian with a sad look
in his eyes.
“But I am tired to-night, Harry. I shan’t
go to the club.
It is nearly eleven, and I want to go to bed early.”
“Do stay. You have never played so well
as to-night. There was something in your touch
that was wonderful. It had more expression than
I had ever heard from it before.”
“It is because I am going to be good,”
he answered, smiling. “I am a little changed
already.”
“You cannot change to me, Dorian,” said
Lord Henry. “You and I will always be
friends.”
“Yet you poisoned me with a book once.
I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me
that you will never lend that book to any one.
It does harm.”
“My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize.
You will soon be going about like the converted,
and the revivalist, warning people against all the
sins of which you have grown tired. You are much
too delightful to do that. Besides, it is no
use. You and I are what we are, and will be what
we will be. As for being poisoned by a book,
there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence
upon action. It annihilates the desire to act.
It is superbly sterile. The books that the world
calls immoral are books that show the world its own
shame. That is all. But we won’t
discuss literature. Come round to-morrow.
I am going to ride at eleven. We might go together,
and I will take you to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome.
She is a charming woman, and wants to consult you about
some tapestries she is thinking of buying. Mind
you come. Or shall we lunch with our little
duchess? She says she never sees you now.
Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought you
would be. Her clever tongue gets on one’s
nerves. Well, in any case, be here at eleven.”
“Must I really come, Harry?”
“Certainly. The park is quite lovely now.
I don’t think there have been such lilacs since
the year I met you.”
“Very well. I shall be here at eleven,”
said Dorian. “Good night, Harry.”
As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment,
as if he had something more to say. Then he sighed
and went out.
It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat
over his arm and did not even put his silk scarf round
his throat. As he strolled home, smoking his
cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.
He heard one of them whisper to the other, “That
is Dorian Gray.” He remembered how pleased
he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared at,
or talked about. He was tired of hearing his
own name now. Half the charm of the little village
where he had been so often lately was that no one
knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom
he had lured to love him that he was poor, and she
had believed him. He had told her once that he
was wicked, and she had laughed at him and answered
that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.
What a laugh she had!—just like a thrush
singing. And how pretty she had been in her
cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing,
but she had everything that he had lost.
