صفحة 479 من 490

It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his

arm and did not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he

strolled home, smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening

dress passed him. He heard one of them whisper to the other,

"That is Dorian Gray." He remembered how pleased he used to be

when he was pointed out, or stared at, or talked about. He was

tired of hearing his own name now. Half the charm of the little

village where he had been so often lately was that no one knew

who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had lured to love

him that he was poor, and she had believed him. He had told her

once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and answered

that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a

laugh she had!-just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had

been in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing,

but she had everything that he had lost.