“I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched.”

“You use them for everything, except flight.”

“Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us.”

“You have a rival.”

“Who?”

He laughed.  “Lady Narborough,” he whispered.  “She perfectly adores him.”

“You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists.”

“Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science.”

“Men have educated us.”

“But not explained you.”

“Describe us as a sex,” was her challenge.

“Sphinxes without secrets.”

She looked at him, smiling.  “How long Mr. Gray is!” she said.  “Let us go and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock.”

“Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys.”

“That would be a premature surrender.”

“Romantic art begins with its climax.”

“I must keep an opportunity for retreat.”

“In the Parthian manner?”

“They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that.”

“Women are not always allowed a choice,” he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody started up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.

He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of the sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round with a dazed expression.

“What has happened?” he asked.  “Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here, Harry?” He began to tremble.

“My dear Dorian,” answered Lord Henry, “you merely fainted.  That was all.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down to dinner.  I will take your place.”

“No, I will come down,” he said, struggling to his feet.  “I would rather come down.  I must not be alone.”

He went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vane watching him.

CHAPTER 18

The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared, tracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but tremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild regrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor’s face peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to lay its hand upon his heart.