Chapter II: Part 2

"My nightmare's begun already," he thought. "Still, she was so surprisingly like, it did give me a turn. They oughtn't to let such crazy females into public conveyances!"

Fortunately his panic had not seized him until he was within a short distance from Bloomsbury, and it did not take him long to reach Queen Square and his shop in the passage. He let himself in, and went up to a little room on an upper floor, which he used as his sitting-room. The person who "looked after him" did not sleep on the premises; but she had laid a fire and left out his tea-things. "I'll have some tea," he thought, as he lit the gas and saw them there. "I feel as if I want cheering up, and it can't make me any more shaky than I am."

And when his fire was crackling and blazing up, and his kettle beginning to sing, he felt more cheerful already. What, after all, if it did take some time to get his ring again? He must make some excuse or other; and, should the worst come to the worst, "I suppose," he thought, "I could get another made like it--though, when I come to think of it, I'll be shot if I remember exactly what it was like, or what the words inside it were, to be sure about them; still, very likely old Vidler would recollect, and I dessay it won't turn out to be necessa----What the devil's that?"

He had the house to himself after nightfall, and he remembered that his private door could not be opened now without a special key; yet he could not help a fancy that some one was groping his way up the staircase outside.

"It's only the boards creaking, or the pipes leaking through," he thought. "I must have the place done up. But I'm as nervous as a cat to-night."

The steps were nearer and nearer--they stopped at the door--there was a loud commanding blow on the panels.

"Who's here at this time of night?" cried Leander, aloud. "Come in, if you want to!"

But the door remained shut, and there came another rap, even more imperious.

"I shall go mad if this goes on!" he muttered, and making a desperate rush to the door, threw it wide open, and then staggered back panic-stricken.

Upon the threshold stood a tall figure in classical drapery. His eyes might have deceived him in the omnibus; but here, in the crude gaslight, he could not be mistaken. It was the statue he had last seen in Rosherwich Gardens--now, in some strange and wondrous way, moving--alive!

A DISTINGUISHED STRANGER

III.

"How could it be a dream? Yet there
She stood, the moveless image fair!"

_The Earthly Paradise._

With slow and stately tread the statue advanced towards the centre of the hairdresser's humble sitting-room, and stood there awhile, gazing about her with something of scornful wonder in her calm cold face. As she turned her head, the wide, deeply-cut sockets seemed the home of shadowy eyes; her face, her bared arms, and the long straight folds of her robe were all of the same greyish-yellow hue; the boards creaked under her sandalled feet, and Leander felt that he had never heard of a more appallingly massive ghost--if ghost indeed she were.

He had retired step by step before her to the hearthrug, where he now stood shivering, with the fire hot at his back, and his kettle still singing on undismayed. He made no attempt to account for her presence there on any rationalistic theory. A statue had suddenly come to life, and chosen to pay him a nocturnal visit; he knew no more than that, except that he would have given worlds for courage to show it the door.

The spectral eyes were bent upon him, as if in expectation that he would begin the conversation, and, at last, with a very unmanageable tongue, he managed to observe--

"Did you want to see me on--on business, mum?"

But the statue only relaxed her lips in a haughty smile.

"For goodness' sake, say something!" he cried wildly; "unless you want me to jump out of the winder! What is it you've come about?"

It seemed to him that in some way a veil had lifted from the stone face, leaving it illumined by a strange light, and from the lips came a voice which addressed him in solemn far-away tones, as of one talking in sleep. He could not have said with certainty that the language was his own, though somehow he understood her perfectly.

"You know me not?" she said, with a kind of sad indifference.

"Well," Leander admitted, as politely as his terror would allow, "you certingly have the advantage of me for the moment, mum."

"I am Aphrodite the foam-born, the matchless seed of AEgis-bearing Zeus. Many names have I amongst the sons of men, and many temples, and I sway the hearts of all lovers; and gods--yea, and mortals--have burned for me, a goddess, with an unconsuming, unquenchable fire!"

"Lor!" said Leander. If he had not been so much flurried, he might have found a remark worthier of the occasion, but the announcement that she was a goddess took his breath away. He had quite believed that goddesses were long since "gone out."

"You know wherefore I am come hither?" she said.

"Not at this minute, I don't," he replied. "You'll excuse me, but you can't be the statue out of those gardens? You reelly are so surprisingly like, that I couldn't help asking you."

"I am Aphrodite, and no statue. Long--how long I know not--have I lain entranced in slumber in my sea-girt isle of Cyprus, and now again has the living touch of a mortal hand upon one of my sacred images called me from my rest, and given me power to animate this marble shell. Some hand has placed this ring upon my finger. Tell me, was it yours?"

Leander was almost reassured; after all, he could forgive her for terrifying him so much, since she had come on so good-natured an errand.

"Quite correct, mum--miss!" (he wished he knew the proper form for addressing a goddess) "that ring is my property. I'm sure it's very civil and friendly of you to come all this way about it," and he held out his hand for it eagerly.

"And think you it was for this that I have visited the face of the earth and the haunts of men, and followed your footsteps hither by roads strange and unknown to me? You are too modest, youth."

"I don't know what there is modest in expecting you to behave honest!" he said, rather wondering at his own audacity.

"How are you called?" she inquired suddenly on this; and after hearing the answer, remarked that the name was known to her as that of a goodly and noble youth who had perished for the sake of Hero.

"The gentleman may have been a connection of mine, for all I know," he said; "the Tweddles have always kep' themselves respectable. But I'm not a hero myself, I'm a hairdresser."

She repeated the word thoughtfully, though she did not seem to quite comprehend it; and indeed it is likely enough that, however intelligible she was to Leander, the understanding was far from being entirely reciprocal.

She extended her hand to him, smiling not ungraciously. "Leander," she said, "cease to tremble, for a great happiness is yours. Bold have you been; yet am I not angered, for I come. Cast, then, away all fear, and know that Aphrodite disdains not to accept a mortal's plighted troth!"

Leander entrenched himself promptly behind the armchair. "I don't know what you're talking about!" he said. "How can I help fearing, with you coming down on me like this? Ask yourself."

"Can you not understand that your prayer is heard?" she demanded.

"_What_ prayer?" cried Leander.

"Crass and gross-witted has the world grown!" said she; "a Greek swain would have needed but few words to divine his bliss. Know, then, that your suit is accepted; never yet has Aphrodite turned the humblest from her shrine. By this symbol," and she lightly touched the ring, "you have given yourself to me. I accept the offering--you are mine!"

Leander was stupefied by such an unlooked-for misconception. He could scarcely believe his ears; but he hastened to set himself right at once.

"If you mean that you were under the impression that I meant anything in particular by putting that ring on, it was all a mistake, mum," he said. "I shouldn't have presumed to it!"

"Were you the lowliest of men, I care not," she replied; "to you I owe the power I now enjoy of life and vision, nor shall you find me ungrateful. But forbear this false humility; I like it not. Come, then, Leander, at the bidding of Cypris; come, and fear nothing!"

But he feared very much, for he had seen the operas of _Don Giovanni_ and _Zampa_, and knew that any familiarity with statuary was likely to have unpleasant consequences. He merely strengthened his defences with a chair.

"You must excuse me, mum, you must indeed," he faltered; "I can't come!"

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I've other engagements," he replied.

"I remember," she said slowly, "in the grove, when light met my eyes once more, there was a maid with you, one who laughed and was merry. Answer--is she your love?"

"No, she isn't," he said shortly. "What if she was?"

"If she were," observed the goddess, with the air of one who mentioned an ordinary fact, "I should crush her!"

"Lord bless me!" cried Leander, in his horror. "What for?"

"Would not she be in my path? and shall any mortal maid stand between me and my desire?"

This was a discovery. She was a jealous and vengeful goddess; she would require to be sedulously humoured, or harm would come.

"Well, well," he said soothingly, "there's nothing of that sort about her, I do assure you."

"Then I spare her," said the goddess. "But how, then, if this be truly so, do you still shrink from the honour before you?"

Leander felt a natural unwillingness to explain that it was because he was engaged to a young lady who kept the accounts at a florist's.

"Well, the fact is," he said awkwardly, "there's difficulties in the way."

"Difficulties? I can remove them all!" she said.

"Not _these_ you can't, mum. It's like this: You and me, we don't start, so to speak, from the same basin. I don't mean it as any reproach to you, but you can't deny you're an Eathen, and, worse than that, an Eathen goddess. Now all my family have been brought up as chapel folk, Primitive Methodists, and I've been trained to have a horror of superstition and idolatries, and see the folly of it. So you can see for yourself that we shouldn't be likely to get on together!"

"You talk words," she said impatiently; "but empty are they, and meaningless to my ears. One thing I learn from them--that you seek to escape me!"

"That's putting it too harsh, mum," he protested. "I'm sure I feel the honour of such a call; and, by the way, do you mind telling me how you got my address--how you found me out, I mean?"

"No one remains long hid from the searching eye of the high gods," she replied.

"So I should be inclined to say," agreed Leander. "But only tell me this, wasn't it you in the omnibus? We call our public conveyances omnibuses, as perhaps you mayn't know."

"I, sea-born Aphrodite, _I_ in a public conveyance, an omnibus? There is an impiety in such a question!"

"Well, I only thought it might have been," he stammered, rather relieved upon the whole that it was not the goddess who had seen his precipitate bolt from the vehicle. Who the female in the corner really was, he never knew; though a man of science might account for the resemblance she bore to the statue by ascribing it to one of those preparatory impressions projected occasionally by a strong personality upon a weak one. But Leander was content to leave the matter unexplained.

"Let it suffice you," she said, "that I am here; and once more, Leander, are you prepared to fulfil the troth you have plighted?"

"I--I can't say I am," he said. "Not that I don't feel thankful for having had the refusal of so very 'igh-class an opportunity; but, as I'm situated at present--what with the state of trade, and unbelief so rampant, and all--I'm obliged to decline with respectful thanks."

He trusted that after this she would see the propriety of going.

"Have a care!" she said; "you are young and not uncomely, and my heart pities you. Do nothing rash. Pause, ere you rouse the implacable ire of Aphrodite!"

"Thank you," said Leander; "if you'll allow me, I will. I don't want any ill-feeling, I'm sure. It's my wish to live peaceable with all men."

"I leave you, then. Use the time before you till I come again in thinking well whether he acts wisely who spurns the proffered hand of Idalian Aphrodite. For the present, farewell, Leander!"

He was overjoyed at his coming deliverance. "Good evening, mum," he said, as he ran to the door and held it open. "If you'll allow me, I'll light you down the staircase--it's rather dark, I'm afraid."

"_Fool!_,'" she said with scorn, and without stirring from her place; and, as she spoke the word, the veil seemed to descend over her face again, the light faded out, and, with a slight shudder, the figure imperceptibly resumed its normal attitude, the drapery stiffened once more into chiselled folds, and the statue was soulless as are statues generally.

FROM BAD TO WORSE

IV.

"And the shadow flits and fleets,
And will not let me be,
And I loathe the squares and streets!"

_Maud._

For some time after the statue had ceased to give signs of life, the hairdresser remained gaping, incapable of thought or action. At last he ventured to approach cautiously, and on touching the figure, found it perfectly cold and hard. The animating principle had plainly departed, and left the statue a stone.

"She's gone," he said, "and left her statue behind her! Well, of all the _goes_----She's come out without her pedestal, too! To be sure, it would have been in her way, walking."

Seating himself in his shabby old armchair, he tried to collect his scattered wits. He scarcely realised, even yet, what had happened; but, unless he had dreamed it all, he had been honoured by the marked attentions of a marble statue, instigated by a heathen goddess, who insisted that his affections were pledged to her.

Perhaps there was a spice of flattery in such a situation--for it cannot fall to the lot of many hairdressers to be thus distinguished--but Leander was far too much alarmed to appreciate it. There had been suggestions of menace in the statue's remarks which made him shudder when he recalled them, and he started violently once or twice when some wavering of the light gave a play of life to the marble mask. "She's coming back!" he thought. "Oh, I do wish she wouldn't!" But Aphrodite continued immovable, and at last he concluded that, as he put it, she "had done for the evening."

His first reflection was--what had best be done? The wisest course seemed to be to send for the manager of the gardens, and restore the statue while its animation was suspended. The people at the gardens would take care that it did not get loose again.

But there was the ring; he must get that off first. Here was an unhoped-for opportunity of accomplishing this in privacy, and at his leisure. Again approaching the figure, he tried to draw off the compromising circle; but it seemed tighter than ever, and he drew out a pair of scissors and, after a little hesitation, respectfully inserted it under the hoop and set to work to prize it off, with the result of snapping both the points, and leaving the ring entirely unaffected. He glanced at the face; it wore the same dreamy smile, with a touch of gentle contempt in it. "She don't seem to mind," he said aloud; "to be sure, she ain't inside of it now, as far as I make it out. I've got all night before me to get the confounded thing off, and I'll go on till I've done it!"

But he laboured on with the disabled scissors, and only succeeded in scratching the smooth marble a little; he stopped to pant. "There's only one way," he told himself desperately; "a little diamond cement would make it all right again; and you expect cracks in a statue."

Then, after a furtive glance around, he fetched the poker from the fireplace. He felt horribly brutal, as if he were going to mutilate and maltreat a creature that could feel; but he nerved himself to tap the back of Aphrodite's hand at the dimpled base of the third finger. The shock ran up to his elbow, and gave him acute "pins and needles," but the stone hand was still intact. He struck again--this time with all his force--and the poker flew from his grasp, and his arm dropped paralyzed by his side.

He could scarcely lift it again for some minutes, and the warning made him refrain from any further violence. "It's no good," he groaned. "If I go on, I don't know what may happen to me. I must wait till she comes to, and then ask her for the ring, very polite and civil, and try if I can't get round her that way."

He was determined that he would never give her up to the gardens while she wore his ring; but, in the mean time, he could scarcely leave the statue standing in the middle of his sitting-room, where it would most assuredly attract the charwoman's attention.

He had little cupboards on each side of his fireplace: one of these had no shelves, and served for storing firewood and bottles of various kinds. From this he removed the contents, and lifting the statue, which, possibly because its substance had been affected in some subtle and inexplicable manner by the vital principle that had so lately permeated it, proved less ponderous than might have been reasonably expected, he pushed it well into the recess, and turned the key on it.

Then he went trembling to bed, and, after an interval of muddled, anxious thinking, fell into a heavy sleep, which lasted until far into the morning.

He woke with the recollection that something unpleasant was hanging over him, and by degrees he remembered what that something was; but it looked so extravagant in the morning light that he had great hopes all would turn out to be a mere dream.

It was a mild Sunday morning, and there were church bells ringing all around him; it seemed impossible that he could really be harbouring an animated antique. But to remove all doubt, he stole down, half dressed, to his small sitting-room, which he found looking as usual--the fire burning dull and dusty in the sunlight that struck in through the open window, and his breakfast laid out on the table.

Almost reassured, he went to the cupboard and unlocked the door. Alas! it held its skeleton--the statue was there, preserving the attitude of queenly command in which he had seen it first. Sharply he shut the door again, and turned the key with a heavy heart.

He swallowed his breakfast with very little appetite, after which he felt he could not remain in the house. "To sit here with _that_ in the cupboard is more than I'm equal to all Sunday," he decided.

If Matilda had been at his aunt's, with whom she lodged, he would have gone to chapel with her; but Matilda did not return from her holiday till late that night. He thought of going to his friend and asking his advice on his case. James, as a barrister's clerk, would presumably be able to give a sound legal opinion on an emergency.

James, however, lived "out Camden Town way," and was certain on so fine a morning to be away on some Sunday expedition with his betrothed: it was hopeless to go in search of him now. If he went to see his aunt, who lived close by in Millman Street, she might ask him about the ring, and there would be a fuss. He was in no humour for attending any place of public worship, and so he spent some hours in aimless wandering about the streets, which, as foreigners are fond of reminding us, are not exhilarating even on the brightest Sabbath, and did not raise his spirits then.

At last hunger drove him back to the passage in Southampton Row, the more quickly as it began to occur to him that the statue might possibly have revived, and be creating a disturbance in the cupboard.

He had passed the narrow posts, and was just taking out his latchkey, when some one behind touched his shoulder and made him give a guilty jump. He dreaded to find the goddess at his elbow; however, to his relief, he found a male stranger, plainly and respectably dressed.

"You Mr. Tweddle the hairdresser?" the stranger inquired.

Leander felt a wild impulse to deny it, and declare that he was his own friend, and had come to see himself on business, for he was in no social mood just then; but he ended by admitting that he supposed he was Mr. Tweddle.

"So did I. Well, I want a little private talk with you, Mr. Tweddle. I've been hanging about for some time; but though I knocked and rang, I couldn't make a soul hear."

"There isn't a soul inside," protested Tweddle, with unnecessary warmth; "not a solitary soul! You wanted to talk with me. Suppose we take a turn round the square?"

"No, no. I won't keep you out; I'll come in with you!"

Inwardly wondering what his visitor wanted, Leander led him in and lit the gas in his hair-cutting saloon. "We shall be cosier here," he said; for he dared not take the stranger up in the room where the statue was concealed, for fear of accidents.

The man sat down in the operating-chair and crossed his legs. "I dare say you're wondering what I've come about like this on a Sunday afternoon?" he began.

"Not at all," said Leander. "Anything I can have the pleasure of doing for you----"

"It's only to answer a few questions. I understand you lost a ring at the Rosherwich Gardens yesterday evening: that's so, isn't it?"

He was a military looking person, as Leander now perceived, and he had a close-trimmed iron-grey beard, a high colour, quick eyes, and a stiff hard-lipped mouth--not at all the kind of man to trifle with. And yet Leander felt no inclination to tell him his story; the stranger might be a reporter, and his adventure would "get into the papers"--perhaps reach Matilda's eyes.

"I--I dropped a ring last night, certainly," he said; "it may have been in the gardens, for what I know."

"Now, now," said the stranger, "don't you _know_ it was in the gardens? Tell me all about it."

"Begging your pardon," said Leander, "I should like to know first what call you have to _be_ told."

"You're quite right--perfectly right. I always deal straightforwardly when I can. I'll tell you who I am. I'm Inspector Bilbow, of the Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard. Now, perhaps, you'll see I'm not a man to be kept in the dark. And I want you to tell me when and where you last saw that ring of yours: it's to your own interest, if you want to see it again."

But Leander _had_ seen it again, and it seemed certain that all Scotland Yard could not assist him in getting it back; he must manage it single-handed.

"It's very kind of you, Mr. Inspector, to try and find it for me," he said; "but the fact is, it--it ain't so valuable as I fancied. I can't afford to have it traced--it's not worth it!"

The inspector laughed. "I never said it was, that I know. The job I'm in charge of is a bigger concern than your trumpery ring, my friend."

"Then I don't see what I've got to do with it," said Leander.

The officer had taken his measure by this time; he must admit his man into a show of confidence, and appeal to his vanity, if he was to obtain any information he could rely upon.

"You're a shrewd chap, I see; 'nothing for nothing' is your motto, eh? Well, if you help me in this, and put me on the track I want, it'll be a fine thing for you. You'll be a principal witness at the police-court; name in the papers; regular advertisement for you!"

This prospect, had he known it--but even inspectors cannot know everything--was the last which could appeal to Leander in his peculiar position. "I don't care for notoriety," he said loftily; "I scorn it."

"Oho!" said the inspector, shifting his ground. "Well, you don't want to impede the course of justice, do you?--because that's what you seem to me to be after, and you won't find it pay in the long run. I'll get this out of you in a friendly way if I can; if not, some other way. Come, give me your account, fair and full, of how you came to lose that ring; there's no help for it--you must!"

Leander saw this and yielded. After all, it did not much matter, for of course he would not touch upon the strange sequel of his ill-omened act; so he told the story faithfully and circumstantially, while the inspector took it all down in his note-book, questioning him closely respecting the exact time of each occurrence.

At last he closed his note-book with a snap. "I'm not obliged to tell you anything in return for all this," he said; "but I will, and then you'll see the importance of holding your tongue till I give you leave to talk about it."

"_I_ shan't talk about it," said Leander.

"I don't advise you to. I suppose you've heard of that affair at Wricklesmarsh Court? What! not that business where a gang broke into the sculpture gallery, one of the finest private collections in England? You surprise me!"

"And what did they steal?" asked Leander.

"They stole the figure whose finger you were ass enough (if you'll allow me the little familiarity) to put your ring on. What do you think of that?"

A wild rush of ideas coursed through the hairdresser's head. Was this policeman "after" the goddess upstairs? Did he know anything more? Would it be better to give up the statue at once and get rid of it? But then--his ring would be lost for ever!

"It's surprising," he said at last. "But what did they want to go and burgle a plaster figure for?"

"That's where it is, you see; she ain't plaster--she's marble, a genuine antic of Venus, and worth thousands. The beggars who broke in knew that, and took nothing else. They'd made all arrangements to get away with her abroad, and pass her off on some foreign collection before it got blown upon; and they'd have done it too if we hadn't been beforehand with them! So what do they do then? They drive up with her to these gardens, ask to see the manager, and say they're agents for some Fine Arts business, and have a sample with them, to be disposed of at a low price. The manager, so he tells me, had a look at it, thought it a neat article and suitable to the style of his gardens. He took it to be plain plaster, as they said, and they put it up for him their own selves, near the small gate up by the road; then they took the money--a pound or two they asked for it--and drove away, and he saw no more of them."

"And was that all they got for their pains?" said Leander.

The inspector smiled indulgently. "Don't you see your way yet?" he asked. "Can't you give a guess where that statue's got to now, eh?"

"No," said Leander, with what seemed to the inspector a quite uncalled-for excitement, "of course I can't! What do you ask me for? How should I know?"

"Quite so," said the other; "you want a mind trained to deal with these things. It may surprise you to hear it, but I know as well how that statue disappeared, and what was done with her, as if I'd been there!"

"Do you, though?" thought Leander, who was beginning to doubt whether his visitor's penetration was anything so abnormal. "What was done with her?" he asked.

"Why, it was a plant from the first. They knew all their regular holes were stopped, and they wanted a place to dump her down in, where she wouldn't attract attention, till they could call for her again; so they got her taken in at the gardens, where they could come in any time by the gate and fetch her off again--and very neatly it was done, too!"

"But where do you make out they've taken her to now?" asked Leander, who was naturally anxious to discover if the official had any suspicions of him.

"I've my own theory about that," was his answer. "I shall hunt that Venus down, sir; I'll stake my reputation on it."

"Venus is her name, it seems," thought Leander. "She told me it was Aphrodite. But perhaps the other's her Christian name. It can't be the Venus I've seen pictures of--she's dressed too decent."

"Yes," repeated the inspector, "I shall hunt her down now. I don't envy the poor devil who's giving her house-room; he'll have reason to repent it!"

"How do you know any one's giving her house-room?" inquired Leander; "and why should he repent it?"

"Ask your own common sense. They daren't take her back to any of their own places; they know better. They haven't left the country with her. What remains? They've bribed or got over some mug of an outsider to be their accomplice, and a bad speculation he'll find it, too."

"What would be done to him?" asked the hairdresser, with a quite unpleasant internal sensation.

"That is a question I wouldn't pretend to decide; but I've no hesitation in saying that the party on whose premises that statue is discovered will wish he'd died before he ever set eyes on her."

"You're quite right there!" said Leander. "Well, sir, I'm afraid I haven't been much assistance to you."

"Never mind that," said the inspector, encouragingly; "you've answered my questions; you've not hindered the law, and that's a game some burn their fingers at."

Leander let him out, and returned to his saloon with his head in a worse whirl than before. He did not think the detective suspected him. He was clearly barking up the wrong tree at present; but so acute a mind could not be long deceived, and if once Leander was implicated his guilt would appear beyond denial. Would the police believe that the statue had run after him? No one would believe it! To be found in possession of that fatal work of art would inevitably ruin him.

He might carry her away to some lonely spot and leave her, but where was the use? She would only come back again; or he might be taken in the act. He dared not destroy her; his right arm had been painful all day after that last attempt.

If he gave her up to the authorities, he would have to explain how he came to be in a position to do so, which, as he now saw, would be a difficult undertaking; and even then he would lose all chance of recovering his ring in time to satisfy his aunt and Matilda. There was no way out of it, unless he could induce Venus to give up the token and leave him alone.

"Cuss her!" he said angrily; "a pretty bog she's led me into, she and that minx, Ada Parkinson!"

He felt so thoroughly miserable that hunger had vanished, and he dreaded the idea of an evening at home, though it was a blusterous night, with occasional vicious spirts of rain, and by no means favourable to continued pacing of streets and squares.

"I'm hanged if I don't think I'll go to church!" he thought; "and perhaps I shall feel more equal to supper afterwards."

He went upstairs to get his best hat and overcoat, and was engaged in brushing the former in his sitting-room, when from within the cupboard he heard a shower of loud raps.

His knees trembled. "She's wuss than any ghost!" he thought; but he took no notice, and went on brushing his hat, while he endeavoured to hum a hymn.

"Leander!" cried the clear, hard voice he knew too well, "I have returned. Release me!"

His first idea was to run out of the house and seek sanctuary in some pew in the opposite church. "But there," he thought disgustedly, "she'd only come in and sit next to me. No, I'll pluck up a spirit and have it out with her!" and he threw open the door.

"How have you dared to imprison me in this narrow tomb?" she demanded majestically, as she stepped forth.

Leander cringed. "It's a nice roomy cupboard," he said. "I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind putting up with it, especially as you invited yourself," he could not help adding.

"When I found myself awake and in utter darkness," she said, "I thought you had buried me beneath the soil."

"Buried you!" he exclaimed, with a sudden perception that he might do worse.

"And in that thought I was preparing to invoke the forces that lie below the soil to come to my aid, burst the masses that impeded me, and overwhelm you and all this ugly swarming city in one vast ruin!"

"I won't bury her," Leander decided. "I'm sorry you hadn't a better opinion of me, mum," he said aloud. "You see, how you came to be in there was this way: when you went out, like the snuff of a candle, so to speak, you left your statue standing in the middle of the floor, and I had to put it somewhere where it wouldn't be seen."

"You did well," she said indulgently, "to screen my image from the vulgar sight; and if you had no statelier shrine wherein to instal it, the fault lies not with you. You are pardoned."

"Thank you, mum," said Leander; "and now let me ask you if you intend to animate that statue like this as a regular thing?"

"So long as your obstinacy continues, or until it outlives my forbearance, I shall return at intervals," she said. "Why do you ask this?"

"Well," said Leander, with a sinking heart, but hoping desperately to move her by the terrors of the law, "it's my duty to tell you that that image you're in is stolen property."

"Has it been stolen from one of my temples?" she asked.

"I dare say--I don't know; but there's the police moving heaven and earth to get you back again!"

"He is good and pious--the police, and if I knew him I would reward him."

"There's a good many hims in the police--that's what we call our guards for the street, who take up thieves and bad characters; and, being stolen, they're all of 'em after _you_; and if they had a notion where you were, they'd be down on you, and back you'd go to wherever you've come from--some gallery, I believe, where you wouldn't get away again in a hurry! Now, I tell you what it is, if you don't give me up that ring, and go away and leave me in quiet, I'll tell the police who you are and where you are. I mean what I say, by George I do!"

"We know not George, nor will it profit you to invoke him now," said the goddess. "See, I will deign to reason with you as with some froward child. Think you that, should the guards seize my image, _I_ should remain within, or that it is aught to me where this marble presentment finds a resting-place while I am absent therefrom? But for you, should you surrender it into their hands, would there be no punishment for your impiety in thus concealing a divine effigy?"

"She ain't no fool!" thought Leander; "she mayn't understand our ways, but she's a match for me notwithstanding. I must try another line."

"Lady Venus," he began, "if that's the proper way to call you, I didn't mean any threats--far from it. I'll be as humble as you please. You look a good-natured lady; you wouldn't want to make a man uncomfortable, I'm sure. Do give me back that ring, for mercy's sake! If I haven't got it to show in a day or two, I shall be ruined!"

"Should any mortal require the ring of you, you have but to reply, 'I have placed it upon the finger of Aphrodite, whose spouse I am!' Thus will you have honour amongst mortals, being held blameless!"

"Blameless!" cried Leander, in pardonable exasperation. "That's all you know about it! And what am I to say to the lady it lawfully belongs to?"

"You have lied to me, then, and you are already affianced! Tell me the abode of this maiden of yours."

"What do you want it for?" he inquired, hoping faintly she might intend to restore the ring.

"To seek it out, to go to her abode, to crush her! Is she not my rival?"

"Crush my Matilda?" he cried in agony. "You'll never do such a thing as that?"

"You have revealed her name! I have but to ask in your streets, 'Where abideth Matilda, the beloved of Leander, the dresser of hair? Lead me to her dwelling.' And having arrived thereat, I shall crush her, and thus she shall deservedly perish!"

He was horrified at the possible effects of his slip, which he hastened to repair. "You won't find it so easy to come at her, luckily," he said; "there's hundreds of Matildas in London alone."

"Then," said the goddess, sweetly and calmly, "it is simple: I shall crush them all."

"Oh, lor!" whimpered Leander, "here's a bloodthirsty person! Where's the sense of doing that?"

"Because, dissipated reveller that you are, you love them."

"Now, when did I ever say I loved them? I don't even know more than two or three, and those I look on as sisters--in fact" (here he hit upon a lucky evasion) "they _are_ sisters--it's only another name for them. I've a brother and three Matildas, and here are you talking of crushing my poor sisters as if they were so many beadles--all for nothing!"

"Is this the truth? Palter not with me! You are pledged to no mortal bride?"

"I'm a bachelor. And as for the ring, it belongs to my aunt, who's over fifty."

"Then no one stands between us, and you are mine!"

"Don't talk so ridiculous! I tell you I ain't yours--it's a free country, this is!"

"If I--an immortal--can stoop thus, it becomes you not to reject the dazzling favour."

A last argument occurred to him. "But I reelly don't think, mum," he said persuasively, "that you can be quite aware of the extent of the stoop. The fact is, I am, as I've tried to make you understand, a hairdresser; some might lower themselves so far as to call me a barber. Now, hairdressing, whatever may be said for it" (he could not readily bring himself to decry his profession)--"hairdressing is considribly below you in social rank. I wouldn't deceive you by saying otherwise. I assure you that, if you had any ideer what a barber was, you wouldn't be so pressing."

She seemed to be struck by this. "You say well!" she observed, thoughtfully; "your occupation may be base and degrading, and if so, it were well for me to know it."

"If you were once to see me in my daily avocations," he urged, "you'd see what a mistake you're making."

"Enough! I will see you--and at once. Barb, that I may know the nature of your toil!"

"I can't do that now," he objected; "I haven't got a customer."

"Then fetch one, and barb with it immediately. You must have your tools by you; so delay not!"

"A customer ain't a tool!" he groaned, "it's a fellow-man; and no one will come in to-night, because it's Sunday. (Don't ask me what Sunday is, because you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you!) And I don't carry on my business up here, but below in the saloon."

"I will go thither and behold you."

"No!" he exclaimed. "Do you want to ruin me?"

"I will make no sign; none shall recognise me for what I am. But come I will!"

Leander pondered awhile. There was danger in introducing the goddess into his saloon; he had no idea what she might do there. But at the same time, if she were bent upon coming, she would probably do so in any case; and besides, he felt tolerably certain that what she would see would convince her of his utter unsuitability as a consort.

Yes, it was surely wisest to assist necessity, and obtain the most favourable conditions for the inevitable experiment.

"I might put you in a corner of the operating-room, to be sure," he said thoughtfully. "No one would think but what you was part of the fittings, unless you went moving about."

"Place me where I may behold you at your labour, and there I will remain," she said.

"Well," he conceded, "I'll risk it. The best way would be for you to walk down to the saloon, and leave yourself ready in a corner till you come to again. I can't carry a heavy marble image all that way!"

"So be it," said she, and followed him to the saloon with a proud docility.

"It's nicely got up," he remarked, as they reached it; "and you'll find it roomier than the cupboard."

She deigned no answer as she remained motionless in the corner he had indicated; and presently, as he held up the candle he was carrying, he found its rays were shining upon a senseless stone.

He went upstairs again, half fearful, half sanguine. "I don't altogether like it," he was thinking. "But if I put a print wrapper over her all day, no one will notice. And goddesses must have their proper pride. If she once gets it into her marble head that I keep a shop, I think that she'll turn up her nose at me. And then she'll give back the ring and go away, and I shan't be afraid of the police; and I needn't tell Tillie anything about it. It's worth risking."

AN EXPERIMENT

V.

"'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach:
Strike all that look upon with marvel."

_The Winter's Tale._

The next day brought Leander a letter which made his heart beat with mingled emotions--it was from his Matilda. It had evidently been written immediately before her return, and told him that she would be at their old meeting-place (the statue of Fox in Bloomsbury Square) at eight o'clock that evening.

The wave of tenderness which swept over him at the anticipation of this was hurled back by an uncomfortable thought. What if Matilda were to refer to the ring? But no; his Matilda would do nothing so indelicate.

All through the day he mechanically went through his hairdressing, singeing, and shampooing operations, divided between joy at the prospect of seeing his adored Matilda again, and anxiety respecting the cold marble swathed in the print wrapper, which stood in the corner of his hair-cutting saloon.

He glanced at it every time he went past to change a brush or heat a razor, but there was no sign of movement under the folds, and he gradually became reassured, especially as it excited no remark.

But as evening drew on he felt that, for the success of his experiment, it was necessary that the cover should be removed. It was dangerous, supposing the inspector were to come in unexpectedly and recognise the statue; but he could only trust to fortune for that, and hoped, too, that even if the detective came he would be able to keep him in the outer shop.

It was only for one evening, and it was well worth the risk.

A foreign gentleman had come in, and the hairdresser found that a fresh wrapper was required, which gave him the excuse he wanted for unveiling the Aphrodite. He looked carefully at the face as he uncovered it, but could discover no speculation as yet in the calm, full gaze of the goddess.

The foreign gentleman was inclined to be talkative under treatment, and the conversation came round to public amusements.

"In my country," the customer said, without mentioning or betraying what his particular country was--"in my country we have what you have not, places to sit out in the fresh air, and drink a glass of beer, along with the entertainments. You have not that in London?"

"Bless your soul, yes," said Leander, who was a true patriot, "plenty of them!"

"Oh, I did not aware that; but who?"

"Well," said the hairdresser, "there's the Eagle in the City Road, for one; and there's the Surrey Gardens; and there's Rosherwich," he added, after a pause. (The Fisheries Exhibition, it may be said, was as yet unknown.)

"And you go there, often?"

"I've been to Rosherwich."

"Was it goot there--you laike it, eh?"

"Well," said Leander, "they tell me it's very gay in the season. P'rhaps I went at the wrong time of the year for it."

"What you call wrong time for it?"

"Slack--nothing going on," he explained; "like it was when I went last Saturday."

"You went last Saturday? And you stay a long time?"

"I didn't stay no longer than I could help," Leander said. "All our party was glad to get away."

The foreigner had risen to go, when his eyes fell on the Venus in the corner.

"You did not stay long, and your party was glad to come away?" he repeated absently. "I am not surprised at that." He gave the hairdresser a long stare as he spoke. "No, I am not surprised.... You have a good taste, my friend; you laike the antique, do you not?" he broke off suddenly.

"Ah! you are looking at the Venus, sir," said Leander. "Yes, I'm very partial to it."

"It is a taste that costs," his customer said.

He looked back over his shoulder as he left the shop, and once more repeated softly, "Yes, it is a taste that costs."

"I suppose," Leander reflected as he went back, "it does strike people as queer, my keeping that statue there; but it's only for one evening."

The foreigner had scarcely left when an old gentleman, a regular customer, looked in, on his way from the City, and at once noticed the innovation. He was an old gentleman who had devoted much time and study to Art, in the intervals of business, and had developed critical powers of the highest order.

He walked straight up to the Venus, and stuck out his under lip. "Where did you get that thing?" he inquired. "Isn't this place of yours small enough, without lumbering it up with statuary out of the Euston Road?"

"I didn't get it there," said Leander. "I--I thought it would be 'andy to 'ang the 'ats on."

"Dear, dear," said the old gentleman, "why do you people dabble in matters you don't understand? Come here, Tweddle, and let me show you. Can't you _see_ what a miserable sham the thing is--a cheap, tawdry imitation of the splendid classic type? Why, by merely exhibiting such a thing, you're vitiating public taste, sir--corrupting it."

Leander did not quite follow this rebuke, which he thought was probably based upon the goddess's antecedents.

"Was she reelly as bad as that, sir?" he said. "I wasn't aware so, or I shouldn't give any offence to customers by letting her stay here."

As he spoke he saw the indefinable indications in the statue's face which denoted that it was instinct once more with life and intelligence, and he was horrified at the thought that the latter part of the conversation might have been overheard.

"But I've always understood," he said, hastily, "that the party this represents was puffickly correct, however free some of the others might have been; and I suppose that's the costume of the period she's in, and very becoming it is, I'm sure, though gone out since."

"Bah!" said the old gentleman, "it's poor art. I'll show you _where_ the thing is bad. I happen to understand something of these things. Just observe how the top of the head is out of drawing; look at the lowness of the forehead, and the distance between the eyes; all the canons of proportion ignored--absolutely ignored!"

What further strictures this rash old gentleman was preparing to pass upon the statue will never be known now, for Tweddle already thought he could discern a growing resentment in her face, under so much candour. He could not stand by and allow so excellent a customer to be crushed on the floor of his saloon, and he knew the Venus quite capable of this: was she not perpetually threatening such a penalty, on much slighter provocation?

He rushed between the unconscious man and his fate. "I think you said your hair cut?" he said, and laid violent hands upon the critic, forced him protesting into a chair, throttled him with a towel, and effectually diverted his attention by a series of personal remarks upon the top of his head.

The victim, while he was being shampooed, showed at first an alarming tendency to revert to the subject of the goddess's defects, but Leander was able to keep him in check by well-timed jets of scalding water and ice-cold sprays, which he directed against his customer's exposed crown, until every idea, except impotent rage, was washed out of it, while a hard machine brush completed the subjugation.

Finally, the unfortunate old man staggered out of the shop, preserved by Leander's unremitting watchfulness from the wrath of the goddess. Yet, such is the ingratitude of human nature, that he left the place vowing to return no more. "I thought I'd got a _clown_ behind me, sir!" he used to say afterwards, in describing it.

Before Leander could recover from the alarm he had been thrown into, another customer had entered; a pale young man, with a glossy hat, a white satin necktie, and a rather decayed gardenia. He, too, was one of Tweddle's regular clients. What his occupation might be was a mystery, for he aimed at being considered a man of pleasure.

"I say, just shave me, will you?" he said, and threw himself languidly into a chair. "Fact is, Tweddle, I've been so doosid chippy for the last two days, I daren't touch a razor."

"Indeed, sir!" said Leander, with respectful sympathy.

"You see," explained the youth, "I've been playing the goat--the giddy goat. Know what that means?"

"I used to," said Leander; "I never touch alcoholic stimulants now, myself."

"Wish I didn't. I say, Tweddle, have you been to the Cosmopolitan lately?"

"I don't go to music-'alls now," said Leander; "I've give up all that now I'm keeping company."

"Well, you go and see the new ballet," the youth exhorted him earnestly; not that he cared whether the hairdresser went or not, but because he wanted to talk about the ballet to somebody.

"Ah!" observed Leander; "is that a good one they've got there now, sir?"

"Rather think so. Ballet called _Olympus_. There's a regular ripping little thing who comes on as one of Venus's doves." And the youth went on to intimate that the dove in question had shown signs of being struck by his powers of fascination. "I saw directly that I'd mashed her; she was gone, dead gone, sir; and----I say, who's that in the corner over there--eh?"

He was staring intently into the pier-glass in front of him. "That?" said Leander, following his glance. "Oh! that's a statue I've bought. She--she brightens up the place a bit, don't she?"

"A statue, is it? Yes, of course; I knew it was a statue. Well, about that dove. I went round after it was all over, but couldn't see a sign of her; so----That's a queer sort of statue you've got there!" he broke off suddenly; and Leander distinctly saw the goddess shake her arm in fierce menace. "He's said something that's put her out," he concluded. "I wish I knew what it was."

"It's a classical statue, sir," he said, with what composure he might; "they're all made like that."

"Are they, by Jove? But, Tweddle, I say, it _moves_: it's shaking its fist like old Harry!"

"Oh, I think you're mistaken, sir, really! I don't perceive it myself."

"Don't perceive it? But, hang it, man, look--look in the glass! There! don't you see it does? Dash it! can't you _say_ it does?"