“Stop, Basil!  I won’t hear it!” cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.  “You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is past is past.”

“You call yesterday the past?”

“What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.  I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

“Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come down to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world.  Now, I don’t know what has come over you.  You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry’s influence.  I see that.”

The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  “I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil,” he said at last, “more than I owe to you.  You only taught me to be vain.”

“Well, I am punished for that, Dorian—­or shall be some day.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Basil,” he exclaimed, turning round.  “I don’t know what you want.  What do you want?”

“I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,” said the artist sadly.

“Basil,” said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his shoulder, “you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself—­”

“Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?” cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.

“My dear Basil!  Surely you don’t think it was a vulgar accident?  Of course she killed herself.”

The elder man buried his face in his hands.  “How fearful,” he muttered, and a shudder ran through him.

“No,” said Dorian Gray, “there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean—­middle-class virtue and all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her finest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she played—­ the night you saw her—­she acted badly because she had known the reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is something of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment—­ about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six—­ you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry,