Chapter 3 — The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Henry begins the morning at his uncle Lord Fermor's rooms in the Albany, trading fashionable wit for what he calls useless information. Fermor unfolds the scandal of Dorian's parentage: beautiful Margaret Devereux ran away with a penniless soldier, watched him die in a duel her father may have engineered, then died herself and left a boy to a cruel grandfather. Henry hears tragedy as atmosphere and muses that he will try to dominate Dorian as Dorian already dominates Basil's imagination, molding the boy's spirit while pretending merely to observe life.

At Lady Agatha's luncheon he performs for duchesses, politicians, and bored scholars. Lady Agatha wants Dorian to help in the East End; Henry says he wants the boy to play for him alone. He mocks marriage scandals, treats America as a joke, refuses sympathy with suffering as ugly, and calls reform a slavery problem best solved by amusing the slaves. When the Duchess of Harley asks how to become young again, he advises repeating one's follies. The table laughs at polished paradox; Dorian watches without taking his eyes from Henry.

Henry walks out planning an afternoon in the park. Dorian touches his arm and asks to come, though Henry reminds him of a promised visit to Basil. Mr. Erskine quietly calls Henry extremely dangerous; Dorian is already fixed on the speaker who made cynicism sound like culture. Henry invites him to look at life together, and the boy accepts as if recruitment were education.

Corruption has moved from Basil's studio into open society. Henry no longer needs a garden sermon to shape Dorian; a crowded table and a single invitation do what Basil's warnings could not stop.