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"Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all

probable. I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil

was not the sort of man to have gone to them. He had no

curiosity. It was his chief defect."

"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered

Basil?" said the younger man. He watched him intently after he

had spoken.

"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a

character that doesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all

vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder.

I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you

it is true. Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I

don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that

crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring

extraordinary sensations."

"A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man

who has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime

again? Don't tell me that."