g the artist
himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago
caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise to so many
strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so
skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his
face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and,
closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought
to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he
might awake.

"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said
Lord Henry, languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the
Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone
there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able
to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have
not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is
really the only place."

"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head
back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at
Oxford. "No: I won't send it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazement through
the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls
from his heavy opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My dear
fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You
do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one,
you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only
one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not
being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the
young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are
ever capable of any emotion."

"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit
it. I have put too much of myself into it."

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were
so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your
rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who
looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear
Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an
intellectual expression, and