about a fortnight we shall be told that he has
been seen in San Francisco. It is an odd thing, but every one who
disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a
delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world."

"What do you think has happened to Basil?" asked Dorian, holding up his
Burgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could
discuss the matter so calmly.

"I have not the slightest idea. If Basil chooses to hide himself, it
is no business of mine. If he is dead, I don't want to think about
him. Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. I hate it."

"Why?" said the younger man wearily.

"Because," said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt
trellis of an open vinaigrette box, "one can survive everything
nowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in
the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. Let us have our
coffee in the music-room, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man
with whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely. Poor Victoria!
I was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of
course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one
regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them
the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality."

Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next
room, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white
and black ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought in, he
stopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, "Harry, did it ever
occur to you that Basil was murdered?"

Lord Henry yawned. "Basil was very popular, and always wore a
Waterbury watch. Why should he have been murdered? He was not clever
enough to have enemies. Of course, he had a wonderful genius for
painting. But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as
possible. Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once,
and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration
for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art."

"I was very fond of Basil," said Dorian with a note of sadness in his
voice. "But don't people say that he was murdered?"

"Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all
probable. I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not
the sort of man to have gone to them. He had no curiosity.