cried. "Do
you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have
you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best
thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply
disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room
looked different as I came in."

"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let
him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes--that
is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait."

"Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for
it. Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room.

A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between the
painter and the screen. "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you must
not look at it. I don't wish you to."

"Not look at my own work! you are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at
it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.

"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never
speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't offer
any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you
touch this screen, everything is over between us."

Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute
amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was actually
pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes
were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.

"Dorian!"

"Don't speak!"

"But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want
me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel, and going over
towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I
shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in
Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of
varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?"

"To exhibit it? You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a
strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be
shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That
was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done at once.

"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. George 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 mo