Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept
several times on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring,
and had wondered what made his young master sleep so late.
Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup
of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china,
and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering
blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows.

"Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling.

"What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.

"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur."

How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea,
turned over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had
been brought by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment,
and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly.
They contained the usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner,
tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts,
and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every
morning during the season. There was a rather heavy bill
for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not
yet had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were
extremely old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live
in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities;
and there were several very courteously worded communications
from Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to advance any sum
of money at a moment's notice and at the most reasonable rates
of interest.

After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate dressing-gown
of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyx-paved bathroom.
The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have
forgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken part
in some strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the unreality
of a dream about it.

As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat
down to a light French breakfast that had been laid out
for him on a small round table close to the open window.
It was an exquisite day. The warm air seemed laden with spices.
A bee flew in and buzzed round the blue-dragon bowl that,
filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He felt
perfectly happy.

Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front
of the portrait, and he started.

"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the table.
"I shut the window?"

Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured.

Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed?
Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him
see a look of evil