As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown into the room. 'I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,' he said gravely. 'I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew that was impossible.
But I wish you had left word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first.
I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of The Globe that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was miserable at not finding you. I can’t tell you how heart-broken I am about the whole thing.
I know what you must suffer. But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl’s mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn’t it?
But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about it all? ' 'My dear Basil, how do I know?
' murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass and looking dreadfully bored. 'I was at the opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry’s sister, for the first time. We were in her box.
She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely. Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. I