Basil explains how he met Dorian at Lady Brandon's home. He felt terror upon first seeing Dorian because he sensed that the young man's personality was so powerful that it could absorb him. More important, Dorian inspires a fresh approach to art in Basil, allowing him to produce the best work of his professional life. Because Basil worries that the public will detect his personal and artistic idolatry of Gray, he will not exhibit the portrait. Echoing a basic tenet of Aestheticism, he suggests that an artist should create beautiful work for its own sake; art shouldn't mean anything. He dismisses artists and critics who see art as a means for biographical expression, and he refuses to have his work thought of in that way.
When Lord Henry expresses his desire to meet Gray, Basil explains that he wants to keep Dorian and the painting hidden away so that neither Dorian nor the world will ever know about his "curious artistic idolatry." Lord Henry suggests that Basil's feeling may pass and that he will eventually become indifferent to Dorian, but Basil disagrees.
At that moment, the butler enters, announcing the arrival of Dorian, and Lord Henry laughs that they must meet now. Before entering the studio where Dorian is waiting, Basil asks Lord Henry not to influence or take away the person who inspires him as an artist.
