"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,"
answered Lord Henry.

"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.
Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time?
No one talks so wonderfully as you do."

"Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling.
"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me,
if you care to."



CHAPTER 4

One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious
arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.
It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled
wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling
of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,
long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette
by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for
Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies
that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars
and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small
leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer
day in London.

Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle,
his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.