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in the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, basil hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.
as the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. but he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.
"it is your best work, basil, the best thing you have ever done," said lord henry languidly. "you must certainly send it next year to the grosvenor. the academy is too large and too vulgar. whenever i have gone there, there have been either so many people that i have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that i have not been able to see the people, which was worse. the grosvenor is really the only place."
