Lord Arthur Saviles Crime

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime etc, by
Oscar Wilde (#3 in our series by Oscar Wilde)
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Title: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Author: Oscar Wilde
Release Date: January, 1997 [EBook #773] [This file was first posted
on January 5, 1997] [Most recently updated: September 17, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LORD
ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME ETC ***

Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen and Co. edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME AND OTHER STORIES

Contents
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime The Canterville Ghost The Sphinx Without
a Secret The Model Millionaire The Portrait of Mr. W. H.

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME
CHAPTER I

It was Lady Windermere's last reception before Easter, and Bentinck
House was even more crowded than usual. Six Cabinet Ministers had
come on from the Speaker's Levee in their stars and ribands, all the
pretty women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the
picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of Carlsruhe, a heavy
Tartar-looking lady, with tiny black eyes and wonderful emeralds,
talking bad French at the top of her voice, and laughing immoderately
at everything that was said to her. It was certainly a wonderful medley

of people. Gorgeous peeresses chatted affably to violent Radicals,
popular preachers brushed coat-tails with eminent sceptics, a perfect
bevy of bishops kept following a stout prima- donna from room to
room, on the staircase stood several Royal Academicians, disguised as
artists, and it was said that at one time the supper-room was absolutely
crammed with geniuses. In fact, it was one of Lady Windermere's best
nights, and the Princess stayed till nearly half-past eleven.
As soon as she had gone, Lady Windermere returned to the picture-
gallery, where a celebrated political economist was solemnly
explaining the scientific theory of music to an indignant virtuoso from
Hungary, and began to talk to the Duchess of Paisley. She looked
wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat, her large blue
forget-me-not eyes, and her heavy coils of golden hair. Or pur they
were--not that pale straw colour that nowadays usurps the gracious
name of gold, but such gold as is woven into sunbeams or hidden in
strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the frame of a
saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner. She was a curious
psychological study. Early in life she had discovered the important
truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a
series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had
acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once
changed her husband; indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages;
but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased
to talk scandal about her. She was now forty years of age, childless, and
with that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of
remaining young.
Suddenly she looked eagerly round the room, and said, in her clear
contralto voice, 'Where is my cheiromantist?'
'Your what, Gladys?' exclaimed the Duchess, giving an involuntary
start.
'My cheiromantist, Duchess; I can't live without him at present.'
'Dear Gladys! you are always so original,' murmured the Duchess,
trying to remember what a cheiromantist really was, and hoping it was

not the same as a cheiropodist.
'He comes to see my hand twice a week regularly,' continued Lady
Windermere, 'and is most interesting about it.'
'Good heavens!' said the Duchess to herself, 'he is a sort of cheiropodist
after all. How very dreadful. I hope he is a foreigner at any rate. It
wouldn't be quite so bad then.'
'I must certainly introduce him to you.'
'Introduce him!' cried the Duchess; 'you don't mean to say he is here?'
and she began looking about for a small tortoise-shell fan and a