Chapter 10 - Page 2

would defile
it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on.
It would be always alive.

He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told
Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.
Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence,
and the still more poisonous influences that came from his
own temperament. The love that he bore him--for it was really love--
had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual.
It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born
of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such
love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann,
and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him.
But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated.
Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future
was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find
their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their
evil real.

He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that
covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.
Was the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him
that it was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.
Gold hair, blue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.
It was simply the expression that had altered. That was horrible
in its cruelty. Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke,
how shallow Basil's reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--
how shallow, and of what little account! His own soul was looking
out at him from the canvas and calling him to judgement. A look
of pain came across him, and he flung the rich pall over the picture.
As he did so, a knock came to the door. He passed out as his
servant entered.

"The persons are here, Monsieur."

He felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must
not be allowed to know where the picture was being taken to.
There was something sly about him, and he had thoughtful,
treacherous eyes. Sitting down at the writing-table he scribbled
a note to Lord Henry, asking him to send him round something
to read and reminding him that they were to meet at eight-fifteen
that evening.

"Wait for an answer," he said, handing it to him, "and show the men in here."

In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard himself,
the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in with a
somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a florid,
red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was considerably tempered
by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the artists who dealt with him.
As a rule, he never left his shop. He waited for people to come to