"Lucky you!" yawns Horace, languidly. "Of all abominations, surely balls are the worst. One goes on when one ought to be turning in, and one turns in when one ought to be going out. They upset one's whole calculations. When I marry I shall make a point of forgetting that such things be." "And Clarissa?" asks Dorian, dryly; "I can't say about the dancing part of it,--you may, I suppose, abjure that if you like,--but I think you will see a ball or two more before you die. She likes that sort of thing. By the by, how lovely she looked last night!" "Very. She cut out all the other women, I thought; they looked right down cheap beside her." "She had it very much her own way," says Dorian; yet, even as he speaks, there rises before him the vision of a little lithe figure gowned in black and crowned with yellow hair, whose dark-blue eyes look out at him with a smile and a touch of wistfulness that adds to their beauty. "That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace, idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane. "Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian, for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother. "Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone for a ramble in the innocent woods." He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his way into the open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's den. He is looking fagged and care-worn, and has about him that look of extreme lassitude that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own home to Sartoris. A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him. "I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort. "What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here, Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable." He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had been sitting a minute ago. "Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking, however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so, something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice) attracts him. "What is this?" he asks, stooping to pick it up.