Kiss me again, my love.
Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it.
Oh! don't go away from me.
My brother....
No; never mind. He didn't mean it. He was in jest....
But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night?
I will work so hard, and try to improve.
Don't be cruel to me because I love you better than anything in the world.
After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you.
But you are quite right, Dorian. I should have shown myself more of an artist.
It was foolish of me; and yet I couldn't help it.
Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me."
A fit of passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and sobs annoyed him.
"I am going," he said at last, in his calm, clear voice. "I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again.
You have disappointed me."
She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.
Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.
He turned on his heel, and left the room.
In a few moments he was out of the theatre.
Where he went to he hardly knew.
He remembered wandering through dimly-lit streets, past gaunt black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses.
Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him.
Drunkards had reeled by cursing, and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes.
He had seen grotesque children huddled upon doorsteps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.
As the dawn was just breaking he found himself close to Covent Garden.
The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl.
Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street.
The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain.
He followed into the market, and watched the men unloading their waggons.
A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries.
He thanked him, and wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly.
They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.
A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge jade-green piles of vegetables.
Under the portico, with its grey sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over.
Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the Piazza.
The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.
Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.
Iris-necked, and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.
After a little while, he hailed a hansom, and drove home.
For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent Square with its blank, close-shuttered windows, and its staring blinds.
The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it.
From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.
In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that hung from the ceiling of the great oak-panelled hall of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.
He turned them out, and, having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had decorated for himself, and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.
As he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him.
He started back as if in surprise. Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.
After he had taken the buttonhole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.
Finally he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.