nd 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.