As the chapter opens, it is half-past noon the next day. Lord Henry calls on his uncle, Lord Fermor, to learn about Dorian's heritage. The uncle is a delightful old curmudgeon — wealthy, cynical, and very knowledgeable about everyone else's private business. He and Lord Henry get along well, and the old man is pleased to tell him all about Dorian's past.
Dorian is the grandson of Lord Kelso and the son of Kelso's daughter, Margaret Devereux. Lady Margaret was an extremely beautiful woman who displeased her father by marrying beneath her; she married a penniless, low-level soldier, as Lord Fermor recalls. Kelso reportedly hired "some Belgian brute" to insult the husband and lure him into a duel, in which he was killed. Lady Margaret was with child: Dorian. She died within a year or so of the duel. Kelso is dead and probably left his fortune to Dorian. The mother had money of her own, so Dorian should be well off financially. After some casual conversation about the charming, deceptive nature of American girls, Lord Henry is off to his Aunt Agatha's for lunch.
Dorian also attends the luncheon, and Lord Henry dominates the conversation, delighting his audience at the table with a number of aphorisms — for example, "I can sympathize with everything except suffering." (A devout Aesthetic, Lord Henry wants people to sympathize with beauty, the use of color, and the joy of life.) To an aging duchess, he suggests, "To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." Lord Henry then launches into a triumphant monologue in praise of folly that echoes his speech to Dorian the day before in Basil's garden.
After the luncheon, Lord Henry and Dorian leave together.
