"Then you and I are unique—we are the only men in London to whom Oscar Wilde has ever truly listened. It is a distinction I shall wear with pride, for it is the sole consolation I shall have in the inevitable scandal that will follow the publication."
He seats himself again—lounging in his chair, almost, still not taking his eyes off Dorian—and strangely his movements seem even more graceful, more free than when Dorian first entered. Something has been shaken loose, some unseen binding cut. "So Basil told you of his passion, did he? I ought to have realised that something of the kind must have happened. I could not bear to be loved by him either, you know—but that was long before either of us met you."
Distantly he wonders why he's saying this. It's not the most accurate representation of their friendship in those days amid the dreaming spires, but it will suffice for his purpose, which is—what, exactly? To become angry in the only manner that he will permit himself? To try and wound Dorian as he himself has been injured? To satisfy some debt to Basil that he does not understand and cannot explain? Perhaps it is all of these things.
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"Then you and I are unique—we are the only men in London to whom Oscar Wilde has ever truly listened. It is a distinction I shall wear with pride, for it is the sole consolation I shall have in the inevitable scandal that will follow the publication."
He seats himself again—lounging in his chair, almost, still not taking his eyes off Dorian—and strangely his movements seem even more graceful, more free than when Dorian first entered. Something has been shaken loose, some unseen binding cut. "So Basil told you of his passion, did he? I ought to have realised that something of the kind must have happened. I could not bear to be loved by him either, you know—but that was long before either of us met you."
Distantly he wonders why he's saying this. It's not the most accurate representation of their friendship in those days amid the dreaming spires, but it will suffice for his purpose, which is—what, exactly? To become angry in the only manner that he will permit himself? To try and wound Dorian as he himself has been injured? To satisfy some debt to Basil that he does not understand and cannot explain? Perhaps it is all of these things.