With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.

Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me.

I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.
When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.

A curious sensation of terror came over me.

I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.