f ice had been laid upon his heart.

"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad's
silence, not understanding what it meant.

"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. "Who wouldn't like it? It is
one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you
like to ask for it. I must have it."

"It is not my property, Harry."

"Whose property is it?"

"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter.

"He is a very lucky fellow."

"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon
his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and
dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be
older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other
way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was
to grow old! For that--for that--I would give everything! Yes, there is
nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for
that!"

"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord
Henry, laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on your work."

"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward.

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. "I believe you would, Basil. You
like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green
bronze figure. Hardly as much, I daresay."

The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like
that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed and
his cheeks burning.

"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your
silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till
I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses
one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your
picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth
is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I
shall kill myself."

Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he cried,
"don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I
shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things,
are you?--you who are finer than any of them!"

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of
the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must
lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives
something to it. Oh, if it were onl