Dorian has just told Lord Henry that from now on, he is going to be good. His first good dead has been to spare a young girl named Hetty; he left her in the country yesterday, without taking her purity. Lord Henry makes fun of this; now the girl will be unsatisfied with any other man, and will be unhappy. Dorian gets mad at Lord Henry for saying this, and ends the subject. Lord Henry brings up Basil; people are talking about his disappearance. Dorian asks what Lord Henry thinks, and Lord Henry doesn't care. If Basil is dead, he does not want to know, and if he's just gone off somewhere, that's his business. Lord Henry mentions his recent divorce from Victoria--she ran off with a man who played the piano. Dorian asks what Lord Henry would say if he said he killed Basil.
Lord Henry says that he is not capable of murder, that murder is for the lower classes. Lord Henry asks whatever happened to the portrait, and then remembers Dorian telling him it was lost, or stolen. Dorian says it was no great loss; he regretted it being painted in the first place.
Lord Henry asks Dorian, "'what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose'--how does the quotation run?--'his own soul'?" Chapter 19, pg. 244 He heard a street-preacher asking that the other day. Dorian tells him that a soul is a serious thing, that everyone has a soul, and that he is quite sure of that. Lord Henry explains that if he is quite sure, it must be untrue. Lord Henry waxes eloquent about how happy Dorian must be, that he has had the world and is still quite perfect. Dorian tells Lord Henry he is not going to go to the club tonight: he is tired. He also reminds Lord Henry that he poisoned him with a book once, and Lord Henry replies that art cannot influence life. He asks Dorian to go to the park the next day, and Dorian reluctantly agrees.
