Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store?
“It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,” said Hallward, “that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?”
“I saw something in it,” he answered, “something that seemed to me very curious.”
“Well, you don’t mind my looking at the thing now?”
Dorian shook his head. “You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture.”
“You will some day, surely?”
“Never.”
“Well, perhaps you are right. And now goodbye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don’t know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you.”
“My dear Basil,” said Dorian, “what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment.”
“It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one’s worship into words.”
“It was a very disappointing confession.”
“Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn’t see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?”
“No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn’t talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.”
“You have got Harry,” said the painter sadly.
“Oh, Harry!” cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. “Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don’t think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil.”
“You will sit to me again?”
“Impossible!”
“You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one.”
“I can’t explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant.”
“Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,” murmured Hallward regretfully. “And now goodbye. I am sorry you won’t let me look at the picture once again. But that can’t be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it.”
As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him! The painter’s absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences—he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.
He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends had access.
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