than that you were extremely good-looking, and that
I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to
think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the
work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and
colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me
that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals
him. And so when I got this offer from Paris I determined to make your
portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me
that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture cannot
be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told
you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped."

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and
a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the
time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who
had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself
would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry
had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too
clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be someone
who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things
that life had in store?

"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should
have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?"

"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very
curious."

"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?"

Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not
possibly let you stand in front of that picture."

"You will some day, surely?"

"Never."

"Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been
the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I
have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost me
to tell you all that I have told you."

"My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me? Simply that you
felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment."

"It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I
have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should
never put one's worship into words."

"It was a very disappointing confession."

"Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else i