“They are both simply forms of imitation,” murmured Lord Henry.  “But do let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not good for one’s morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don’t suppose you will want your wife to act.  So what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating,—­people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don’t look so tragic!  The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.  What more can you want?”

“Please go away, Harry,” cried the lad.  “I really want to be alone.- -Basil, you don’t mind my asking you to go?  Ah! can’t you see that my heart is breaking?” The hot tears came to his eyes.  His [39] lips trembled, and, rushing to the back of the box, he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.

“Let us go, Basil,” said Lord Henry, with a strange tenderness in his voice; and the two young men passed out together.

A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up, and the curtain rose on the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale, and proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed interminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots, and laughing.  The whole thing was a fiasco.  The last act was played to almost empty benches.

As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the greenroom.  The girl was standing alone there, with a look of triumph on her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a radiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of their own.

When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy came over her.  “How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!” she cried.

“Horribly!” he answered, gazing at her in amazement,—­“horribly!  It was dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no idea what I suffered.”

The girl smiled.  “Dorian,” she answered, lingering over his name with long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her lips,—­“Dorian, you should have understood.  But you understand now, don’t you?”

“Understand what?” he asked, angrily.

“Why I was so bad to-night.  Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall never act well again.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill you shouldn’t act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were bored.  I was bored.”

She seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An ecstasy of happiness dominated her.