"'You must not, you really must not. What would people think if they
saw you?'

"He got up with a white strained face.

"'I had to,' he muttered, glancing about him fearfully, 'I had
to--once....'"

I must warn my readers that this whole incident is ripened and set in
a higher key of thought by the fact that Oscar told it more than ten
years after it happened.


FOOTNOTES:

[3] Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting or paraphrasing in
conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said
them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the
original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of
originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence
upon him, almost as great indeed as Pater.

[4] "Stain," not "pain," in the original.




CHAPTER IV