stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the
polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I must be
going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your answering
a question I put to you some time ago."

"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You know quite well."

"I do not, Harry."

"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you
won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason."

"I told you the real reason."

"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself
in it. Now, that is childish."

"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every
portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not
of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is
not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on
the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this
picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own
soul."

Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked.

"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came
over his face.

"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.

"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter;
"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly
believe it."

Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from
the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he
replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,
"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it
is quite incredible."

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms,
with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A
grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long
thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt
as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what
was coming.

"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two
months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor artists
have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the
public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as
you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation
for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten
minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians,
I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned
half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes
met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came
over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere
personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would
absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not
want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how
independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at
least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then--but I don't know how
to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the
verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate
had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid
and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so:
it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to
escape."

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience
is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."

"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.
However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used
to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I
stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so soon,
Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?"

"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry,
pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.

"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people
with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and
parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her
once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some
picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been
chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century
standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the
young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite
close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I
asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so
reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to
each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me


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