“Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the nocturne over again.
Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if you play she will come closer to the earth.
You won’t? Let us go to the club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it charmingly. There is someone at White’s who wants immensely to know you—young Lord Poole, Bournemouth’s eldest son. He has already copied your neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you. He is quite delightful and rather reminds me of you.”
“I hope not,” said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes. “But I am tired tonight, Harry. I shan’t go to the club. It is nearly eleven, and I want to go to bed early.”
“Do stay. You have never played so well as tonight. There was something in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression than I had ever heard from it before.”
“It is because I am going to be good,” he answered, smiling. “I am a little changed already.”
“You cannot change to me, Dorian,” said Lord Henry. “You and I will always be friends.”
“Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm.”
“My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too delightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be.