"What do you mean?" I asked in wonderment; but he turned and left the room on the spot. To my astonishment Oscar also got up.
"It is not friendly of you, Frank," he said weakly. "It really is not friendly."
I stared at him: he was parrotting Douglas' idiotic words.
"Don't be absurd," I said; but he repeated:
"No, Frank, it is not friendly," and went to the door and disappeared.
Like a flash I saw part at least of the truth. It was not Oscar who had ever misled Douglas, but Lord Alfred Douglas who was driving Oscar whither he would.
I turned to Shaw.
"Did I say anything in the heat of argument that could have offended Oscar or Douglas?"
"Nothing," said Shaw, "not a word: you have nothing to reproach yourself with."[12]
Left to myself I was at a loss to imagine what Lord Alfred Douglas proposed to himself by hounding Oscar on to attack his father. I was still more surprised by his white, bitter face. I could not get rid of the impression it left on me. While groping among these reflections I was suddenly struck by a sort of likeness, a similarity of expression and of temper between Lord Alfred Douglas and his unhappy father. I could not get it out of my head—that little face blanched with rage and the wild, hating eyes; the shrill voice, too, was Queensberry's.