For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over
the woman. Her head drooped. She wiped
her eyes with shaking hands. “Sibyl has
a mother,” she murmured; “I had none.”
The lad was touched. He went towards her, and
stooping down, he kissed her. “I am sorry
if I have pained you by asking about my father,”
he said, “but I could not help it. I must
go now. Good-bye. Don’t forget that
you will have only one child now to look after, and
believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, I will
find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like
a dog. I swear it.”
The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate
gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic
words, made life seem more vivid to her. She
was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed
more freely, and for the first time for many months
she really admired her son. She would have liked
to have continued the scene on the same emotional
scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be
carried down and mufflers looked for. The lodging-house
drudge bustled in and out. There was the bargaining
with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar
details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment
that she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from
the window, as her son drove away. She was conscious
that a great opportunity had been wasted. She
consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she
felt her life would be, now that she had only one
child to look after. She remembered the phrase.
It had pleased her. Of the threat she said
nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed.
She felt that they would all laugh at it some day.
“I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?”
said Lord Henry that evening as Hallward was shown
into a little private room at the Bristol where dinner
had been laid for three.
“No, Harry,” answered the artist, giving
his hat and coat to the bowing waiter. “What
is it? Nothing about politics, I hope!
They don’t interest me. There is hardly
a single person in the House of Commons worth painting,
though many of them would be the better for a little
whitewashing.”
“Dorian Gray is engaged to be married,”
said Lord Henry, watching him as he spoke.
Hallward started and then frowned. “Dorian
engaged to be married!” he cried. “Impossible!”
“It is perfectly true.”
“To whom?”
“To some little actress or other.”
“I can’t believe it. Dorian is far
too sensible.”
“Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things
now and then, my dear Basil.”
“Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do
now and then, Harry.”
“Except in America,” rejoined Lord Henry
languidly. “But I didn’t say he
was married. I said he was engaged to be married.
There is a great difference. I have a distinct
remembrance of being married, but I have no recollection
at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think
that I never was engaged.”
