CHAPTER I.

Page

6 "Well, I will tell you what it is."

"Please don't."

"I must. I want you to explain...." (7)

6 "Well, this is incredible," repeated Hallward, rather bitterly,--"incredible to me at times. I don't know what it means. The story is simply this...."(8)

6 You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. My father destined me for the army. I insisted on going to Oxford. Then he made me enter my name at the Middle Temple. Before I had eaten half a dozen dinners I gave up the Bar, and announced my intention of becoming a painter. I have always been my own master.... (9)

7 I knew that if I spoke to Dorian I would become absolutely devoted to him, and that I ought not to speak to him. I grew afraid.... (9)

7 perfectly audible to everybody in the room, something like, 'Sir Humpty Dumpty--you know--Afghan frontier. Russian intrigues: very successful man--wife killed by an elephant--quite inconsolable--wants to marry a beautiful American widow--everybody does now-a-days--hates Mr. Gladstone--but very much interested in beetles: ask him what he thinks of Schouvaloff.' I simply fled....(11)

8 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I quite inseparable--engaged to be married to the same man--I mean married on the same day--how very silly of me! Quite forget what he does....(11)

9 I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. Of course sometimes it is only for a few minutes. But a few minutes with somebody one worships mean a great deal."

"But you don't really worship him?"

"I do."

"How extraordinary. I thought you would never care for anything but your painting,--your art, I should say. Art sounds better, doesn't it?"... (14)

10 After some time he came back. "You don't understand, Harry," he said. "Dorian Gray is merely to me a motive in art.... (16)

10 "Because I have put into it all the extraordinary romance of which, of course, I have never dared to speak to him.... (16)

10 I give myself away. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we walk home together from the club arm in arm, or sit in the studio.... (17)

11, 12 Don't take away from me the one person that makes life absolutely lovely to me, and that gives to my art whatever wonder or charm it possesses. Mind, Harry, I trust you." ... (20, 21)