let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love
with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose."

For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her
head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "Sibyl has a
mother," she murmured; "I had none."

The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down he kissed
her. "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father," he
said, "but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don't forget
that you will only have one child now to look after, and believe me that
if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him down,
and kill him like a dog. I swear it."

The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that
accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to
her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and
for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would
have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but
he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down, and mufflers looked
for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out. There was the
bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar details. It
was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that she waved the tattered
lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. She was
conscious that a great opportunity had been wasted. She consoled herself
by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt her life would be, now that she
had only one child to look after. She remembered the phrase. It had
pleased her. Of the threat she said nothing. It was vividly and
dramatically expressed. She felt that they would all laugh at it some
day.

CHAPTER VI

"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry that
evening, as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol
where dinner had been laid for three.

"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing
waiter. "What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope? They don't interest
me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth
painting; though many of them would be the better for a little
white-washing."

"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him as
he spoke.

Hallward started, and then frowned. "Dorian engaged to be married!" he
cried. "Impossible!"

"It is perfectly true."

"To whom?"

"To some