g.

"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never
speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't
offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember,
if you touch this screen, everything is over between us."

Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute
amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was
actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of
his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.

"Dorian!"

"Don't speak!"

"But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't
want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over
towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I
shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in
Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of
varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?"

"To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a
strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be
shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?
That was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done
at once.

"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going
to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de
Seze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will
only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for
that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep
it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it."

Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of
perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible
danger. "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he
cried. "Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for
being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only
difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have
forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world
would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly
the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into
his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half
seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of
an hour, get Basil to