“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 tell you why he won’t exhibit your picture.  He told me why he wouldn’t, and it was a revelation to me.”  Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.

“Basil,” he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in the face, “we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall tell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?”

The painter shuddered in spite of himself.  “Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I could not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you to look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation.”

“No, Basil, you must tell me,” insisted Dorian Gray.  “I think I have a right to know.”  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward’s mystery.

“Let us sit down, Dorian,” said the painter, looking troubled.  “Let us sit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the picture something curious?—­something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?”

“Basil!” cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.