The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tinted Venus, by F. Anstey

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Title: The Tinted Venus
       A Farcical Romance

Author: F. Anstey

Illustrator: Bernard Partridge

Release Date: January 7, 2008 [EBook #24197]

Language: English

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THE TINTED VENUS
A Farcical Romance

BY

F. ANSTEY

AUTHOR OF
"THE GIANT'S ROBE," "VICE VERSA," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER AND BROTHERS
1898




                               "To you,
  Free and ingenious spirits, he doth now
  In me, present his service, with his vow
  He hath done his best; and, though he cannot glory
  In his invention (this work being a story
  Of reverend antiquity), he doth hope
  In the proportion of it, and the scope,
  You may observe some pieces drawn like one
  Of a steadfast hand; and with the whiter stone
  To be marked in your fair censures. More than this
  I am forbid to promise."

                            MASSINGER.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

     I. IN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE                                         3

    II. PLEASURE IN PURSUIT                                           27

   III. A DISTINGUISHED STRANGER                                      43

    IV. FROM BAD TO WORSE                                             55

     V. AN EXPERIMENT                                                 77

    VI. TWO ARE COMPANY                                               93

   VII. A FURTHER PREDICAMENT                                        109

  VIII. BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA                           127

    IX. AT LAST!                                                     151

     X. DAMOCLES DINES OUT                                           169

    XI. DENOUNCED                                                    189

   XII. AN APPEAL                                                    207

  XIII. THE LAST STRAW                                               227

   XIV. THE THIRTEENTH TRUMP                                         241

    XV. THE ODD TRICK                                                263




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                    PAGE

  "THERE," HE SAID TRIUMPHANTLY, "IT MIGHT HAVE
  BEEN MADE FOR HER!"                                                 25

  "ANSWER ME," HE SAID ROUGHLY; "IS THIS SOME LARK
  OF YOURS?"                                                          32

  "DID YOU WANT TO SEE ME ON--ON BUSINESS, MUM?"                      47

  "WHAT WOULD BE DONE TO HIM?" ASKED THE HAIRDRESSER,
  WITH A QUITE UNPLEASANT INTERNAL
  SENSATION                                                           67

  "KEEP OFF! TELL HER TO DROP IT, TWEDDLE!"                           86

  "IT IS A MISERABLE THING," HE WAS THINKING, "FOR
  A MAN ... TO HAVE A FEMALE STATUE TROTTING
  AFTER HIM LIKE A GREAT DORG"                                       104

  SHE WAS STANDING BEFORE THE LOW CHIMNEY-GLASS,
  REGARDING HERSELF INTENTLY                                         119

  "FOR 'ARF A PINT I'D KNOCK YOUR BLOOMIN' 'ED IN!"                  140

  "WHY DID YOU NOT KNEEL TO ME BEFORE?"                              161

  SHE STRUCK A NAMELESS FEAR INTO LEANDER'S SOUL                     177

  HER HANDS WERE UNSTEADY WITH PASSION AS SHE TIED
  HER BONNET-STRINGS                                                 199

  LEANDER WENT DOWN ON ALL FOURS ON THE HEARTH-RUG                   220

  "STOP WHERE YOU ARE!... FOR MERCY'S SAKE, DON'T COME IN!"          238

  "LEANDER!" SHE CRIED, ... "I DON'T BELIEVE SHE
  CAN DO IT!"                                                        255

  HE THREW HIMSELF DOWN BY HER CHAIR, AND DREW
  DOWN THE HANDS IN WHICH SHE HAD HIDDEN HER
  FACE                                                               276




IN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

I.

  "Ther hopped Hawkyn,
  Ther daunsed Dawkyn,
  Ther trumped Tomkyn...."

            _The Tournament of Tottenham._


In Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, there is a small alley or passage
leading into Queen Square, and rendered inaccessible to all but foot
passengers by some iron posts. The shops in this passage are of a
subdued exterior, and are overshadowed by a dingy old edifice dedicated
to St. George the Martyr, which seems to have begun its existence as a
rather handsome chapel, and to have improved itself, by a sort of
evolution, into a singularly ugly church.

Into this alley, one Saturday afternoon late in October, came a short
stout young man, with sandy hair, and a perpetual grin denoting
anticipation rather than enjoyment. Opposite the church he stopped at a
hairdresser's shop, which bore the name of Tweddle. The display in the
window was chastely severe; the conventional half-lady revolving slowly
in fatuous self-satisfaction, and the gentleman bearing a piebald beard
with waxen resignation, were not to be found in this shop-front, which
exhibited nothing but a small pile of toilet remedies and a few lengths
of hair of graduated tints. It was doubtful, perhaps, whether such
self-restraint on the part of its proprietor was the result of a
distaste for empty show, or a conviction that the neighbourhood did not
expect it.

Inside the shop there was nobody but a small boy, corking and labelling
bottles; but before he could answer any question as to the whereabouts
of his employer, that artist made his appearance. Leander Tweddle was
about thirty, of middle height, with a luxuriant head of brown hair, and
carefully-trimmed whiskers that curled round towards his upper lip,
where they spent themselves in a faint moustache. His eyes were rather
small, and his nose had a decided upward tendency; but, with his
pink-and-white complexion and compact well-made figure, he was far from
ill-looking, though he thought himself even farther.

"Well, Jauncy," he said, after the first greetings, "so you haven't
forgot our appointment?"

"Why, no," explained his friend; "but I never thought I should get away
in time to keep it. We've been in court all the morning with motions and
short causes, and the old Vice sat on till past three; and when we did
get back to chambers, Splitter kep' me there discussing an opinion of
his I couldn't agree with, and I was ever so long before I got him to
alter it my way."

For he was clerk to a barrister in good practice, and it was Jauncy's
pride to discover an occasional verbal slip in some of his employer's
more hastily written opinions on cases, and suggest improvements.

"Well, James," said the hairdresser, "I don't know that I could have got
away myself any earlier. I've been so absorbed in the laborrit'ry, what
with three rejuvenators and an elixir all on the simmer together, I
almost gave way under the strain of it; but they're set to cool now, and
I'm ready to go as soon as you please."

"Now," said Jauncy, briskly, as they left the shop together, "if we're
to get up to Rosherwich Gardens to-night, we mustn't dawdle."

"I just want to look in here a minute," said Tweddle, stopping before
the window of a working-jeweller, who sat there in a narrow partition
facing the light, with a great horn lens protruding from one of his eyes
like a monstrous growth. "I left something there to be altered, and I
may as well see if it's done."

Apparently it was done, for he came out almost immediately, thrusting a
small cardboard box into his pocket as he rejoined his friend. "Now we'd
better take a cab up to Fenchurch Street," said Jauncy. "Can't keep
those girls standing about on the platform."

As they drove along, Tweddle observed, "I didn't understand that our
party was to include the fair sect, James?"

"Didn't you? I thought my letter said so plain enough. I'm an engaged
man now, you know, Tweddle. It wouldn't do if I went out to enjoy myself
and left my young lady at home!"

"No," agreed Leander Tweddle, with a moral twinge, "no, James. I'd
forgot you were engaged. What's the lady's name, by-the-by?"

"Parkinson; Bella Parkinson," was the answer.

Leander had turned a deeper colour. "Did you say," he asked, looking out
of the window on his side of the hansom, "that there was another lady
going down?"

"Only Bella's sister, Ada. She's a regular jolly girl, Ada is,
you'll----Hullo!"

For Tweddle had suddenly thrust his stick up the trap and stopped the
cab. "I'm very sorry, James," he said, preparing to get out, "but--but
you'll have to excuse me being of your company."

"Do you mean that my Bella and her sister are not good enough company
for you?" demanded Jauncy. "You were a shop-assistant yourself, Tweddle,
only a short while ago!"

"I know that, James, I know; and it isn't that--far from it. I'm sure
they are two as respectable girls, and quite the ladies in every
respect, as I'd wish to meet. Only the fact is----"

The driver was listening through the trap, and before Leander would say
more he told him to drive on till further orders, after which he
continued--

"The fact is--we haven't met for so long that I dare say you're unaware
of it--but _I'm_ engaged, James, too!"

"Wish you joy with all my heart, Tweddle; but what then?"

"Why," exclaimed Leander, "my Matilda (that's _her_ name) is the dearest
girl, James; but she's most uncommon partickler, and I don't think she'd
like my going to a place of open-air entertainment where there's
dancing--and I'll get out here, please!"

"Gammon!" said Jauncy. "That isn't it, Tweddle; don't try and humbug me.
You were ready enough to go just now. You've a better reason than that!"

"James, I'll tell you the truth; I have. In earlier days, James, I used
constantly to be meeting Miss Parkinson and her sister in serciety, and
I dare say I made myself so pleasant and agreeable (you know what a way
that is of mine), that Miss Ada (not _your_ lady, of course) may have
thought I meant something special by it, and there's no saying but what
it might have come in time to our keeping company, only I happened just
then to see Matilda, and--and I haven't been near the Parkinsons ever
since. So you can see for yourself that a meeting might be awkward for
all parties concerned; and I really must get out, James!"

Jauncy forced him back. "It's all nonsense, Tweddle," he said, "you
can't back out of it now! Don't make a fuss about nothing. Ada don't
look as if she'd been breaking her heart for you!"

"You never can tell with women," said the hairdresser, sententiously;
"and meeting me sudden, and learning it could never be--no one can say
how she mightn't take it!"

"I call it too bad!" exclaimed Jauncy. "Here have I been counting on you
to make the ladies enjoy themselves--for I haven't your gift of
entertaining conversation, and don't pretend to it--and you go and leave
me in the lurch, and spoil their evening for them!"

"If I thought I was doing that----" said Leander, hesitating.

"You are, you know you are!" persisted Jauncy, who was naturally anxious
to avoid the reduction of his party to so inconvenient a number as
three.

"And see here, Tweddle, you needn't say anything of your engagement
unless you like. I give you my word I won't, not even to Bella, if
you'll only come! As to Ada, she can take care of herself, unless I'm
very much mistaken in her. So come along, like a good chap!"

"I give in, James; I give in," said Leander. "A promise is a promise,
and yet I feel somehow I'm doing wrong to go, and as if no good would
come of it. I do indeed!"

And so he did not stop the cab a second time, and allowed himself to be
taken without further protest to Fenchurch Street Station, on the
platform of which they found the Misses Parkinson waiting for them.

Miss Bella Parkinson, the elder of the two, who was employed in a large
toy and fancy goods establishment in the neighbourhood of Westbourne
Grove, was tall and slim, with pale eyes and auburn hair. She had some
claims to good looks, in spite of a slightly pasty complexion, and a
large and decidedly unamiable mouth.

Her sister Ada was the more pleasing in appearance and manner, a
brunette with large brown eyes, an impertinent little nose, and a
brilliant healthy colour. She was an assistant to a milliner and
bonnet-maker in the Edgware Road.

Both these young ladies, when in the fulfilment of their daily duties,
were models of deportment; in their hours of ease, the elder's cold
dignity was rather apt to turn to peevishness, while the younger sister,
relieved from the restraints of the showroom, betrayed a lively and even
frivolous disposition.

It was this liveliness and frivolity that had fascinated the hairdresser
in days that had gone by; but if he had felt any self-distrust now in
venturing within their influence, such apprehensions vanished with the
first sight of the charms which had been counteracted before they had
time to prevail.

She was well enough, this Miss Ada Parkinson, he thought now; a
nice-looking girl in her way, and stylishly dressed. But his Matilda
looked twice the lady she ever could, and a vision of his betrothed (at
that time taking a week's rest in the country) rose before him, as if to
justify and confirm his preference.

The luckless James had to undergo some amount of scolding from Miss
Bella for his want of punctuality, a scolding which merely supplied an
object to his grin; and during her remarks, Ada had ample time to rally
Leander Tweddle upon his long neglect, and used it to the best
advantage.

Perhaps he would have been better pleased by a little less
insensibility, a touch of surprise and pleasure on her part at meeting
him again, as he allowed himself to show in a remark that his absence
did not seem to have affected her to any great extent.

"I don't know what you expected, Mr. Tweddle," she replied. "Ought I to
have cried both my eyes out? You haven't cried out either of yours, you
know!"

"'Men must work, and women must weep,' as Shakspeare says," he observed,
with a vague idea that he was making rather an apt quotation. But his
companion pointed out that this only applied to cases where the women
had something to weep about.

The party had a compartment to themselves, and Leander, who sat at one
end opposite to Ada, found his spirits rising under the influence of her
lively sallies.

"That's the only thing Matilda wants," he thought, "a little more
liveliness and go about her. I like a little chaff myself, now and then,
I must say."

At the other end of the carriage, Bella had been suggesting that the
gardens might be closed so late in the year, and regretting that they
had not chosen the new melodrama at the Adelphi instead; which caused
Jauncy to draw glowing pictures of the attractions of Rosherwich
Gardens.

"I was there a year ago last summer," he said, "and it was first-rate:
open-air dancing, summer theatre, rope-walking, fireworks, and supper
out under the trees. You'll enjoy yourself, Bella, right enough when you
get there!"

"If that isn't enough for you, Bella," cried her sister, "you must be
difficult to please! I'm sure I'm quite looking forward to it; aren't
you, Mr. Tweddle?"

The poor man was cursed by the fatal desire of pleasing, and
unconsciously threw an altogether unnecessary degree of _empressement_
into his voice as he replied, "In the company I am at present, I should
look forward to it, if it was a wilderness with a funeral in it."

"Oh dear me, Mr. Tweddle, that _is_ a pretty speech!" said Ada, and she
blushed in a manner which appalled the conscience-stricken hairdresser.

"There I go again," he thought remorsefully, "putting things in the poor
girl's head--it ain't right. I'm making myself too pleasant!"

And then it struck him that it would be only prudent to make his
position clearly understood, and, carefully lowering his voice, he began
a speech with that excellent intention. "Miss Parkinson," he said
huskily, "there's something I have to tell you about myself, very
particular. Since I last enjoyed the pleasure of meeting with you my
prospects have greatly altered, I am no longer----"

But she cut him short with a little gesture of entreaty. "Oh, not here,
please, Mr. Tweddle," she said; "tell me about it in the gardens!"

"Very well," he said, relieved; "remind me when we get there--in case I
forget, you know."

"Remind you!" cried Ada; "the _idea_, Mr. Tweddle! I certainly shan't do
any such thing."

"She thinks I am going to propose to her!" he thought ruefully; "it will
be a delicate business undeceiving her. I wish it was over and done
with!"

It was quite dark by the time they had crossed the river by the ferry,
and made their way up to the entrance to the pleasure gardens, imposing
enough, with its white colonnade, its sphinxes, and lines of coloured
lamps.

But no one else had crossed with them; and, as they stood at the
turnstiles, all they could see of the grounds beyond seemed so dark and
silent that they began to have involuntary misgivings. "I suppose,"
said Jauncy to the man at the ticket-hole, "the gardens are open--eh?"

"Oh yes," he said gruffly, "_they're_ open--they're _open_; though there
ain't much going on out-of-doors, being the last night of the season."

Bella again wished that they had selected the Adelphi for their
evening's pleasure, and remarked that Jauncy "might have known."

"Well," said the latter to the party generally, "what do you say--shall
we go in, or get back by the first train home?"

"Don't be so ridiculous, James!" said Bella, peevishly. "What's the good
of going back, to be too late for everything. The mischief's done now."

"Oh, let's go in!" advised Ada; "the amusements and things will be just
as nice indoors--nicer on a chilly evening like this;" and Leander
seconded her heartily.

So they went in; Jauncy leading the way with the still complaining
Bella, and Leander Tweddle bringing up the rear with Ada. They picked
their way as well as they could in the darkness, caused by the closely
planted trees and shrubs, down a winding path, where the sopped leaves
gave a slippery foothold, and the branches flicked moisture insultingly
in their faces as they pushed them aside.

A dead silence reigned everywhere, broken only by the wind as it rustled
amongst the bare twigs, or the whistling of a flaring gas-torch
protruding from some convenient tree.

Jauncy occasionally shouted back some desperate essay at jocularity, at
which Ada laughed with some perseverance, until even she could no longer
resist the influence of the surroundings.

On a hot summer's evening those grounds, brilliantly illuminated and
crowded by holiday-makers, have been the delight of thousands of honest
Londoners, and will be so again; but it was undeniable that on this
particular occasion they were pervaded by a decent melancholy.

Ada had slipped a hand, clad in crimson silk, through Leander's arm as
they groped through the gloom together, and shrank to his side now and
then in an alarm which was only half pretended. But if her light
pressure upon his arm made his heart beat at all the faster, it was only
at the fancy that the trusting hand was his Matilda's, or so at least
did he account for it to himself afterwards.

They followed on, down a broad promenade, where the ground glistened
with autumn damps, and the unlighted lamps looked wan and spectral.
There was a bear-pit hard by, over the railings of which Ada leaned and
shouted a defiant "Boo;" but the bears had turned in for the night, and
the stone re-echoed her voice with a hollow ring. Indistinct bird forms
were roosting in cages; but her umbrella had no effect upon them.

Jauncy was waiting for them to come up, perhaps as a protection against
his _fiancee's_ reproaches. "In another hour," he said, with an implied
apology, "you'll see how different this place looks. We--we're come a
little too early. Suppose we fill up the time by a nice little dinner at
the Restorong--eh, Ada? What do you think, Tweddle?"

The suggestion was received favourably, and Jauncy, thankful to retrieve
his reputation as leader, took them towards the spot where food was to
be had.

Presently they saw lights twinkling through the trees, and came to a
place which was clearly the focus of festivity. There was the open-air
theatre, its drop-scene lowered, its proscenium lost in the gloom;
there was the circle for _al-fresco_ dancing, but it was bare, and the
clustered lights were dead; there was the restaurant, dark and silent
like all else.

Jauncy stood there and rubbed his chin. "This is where I dined when we
were here last," he said, at length; "and a capital little dinner they
gave us too!"

"What _I_ should like to know," said the elder Miss Parkinson, "is,
where are we to dine to-night?"

"Yes," said Jauncy, encouragingly; "don't you fret yourself, Bella.
Here's an old party sweeping up leaves, we'll ask him."

They did so, and were referred to a large building, in the Gothic style,
with a Tudor doorway, known as the "Baronial All," where lights shone
behind the painted windows.

Inside, a few of the lamps around the pillars were lighted, and the body
of the floor was roped in as if for dancing; but the hall was empty,
save for a barmaid, assisted by a sharp little girl, behind the long bar
on one of its sides.

Jauncy led his dejected little party up to this, and again put his
inquiry with less hopefulness. When he found that the only available
form of refreshment that evening was bitter ale and captain's biscuits,
mitigated by occasional caraway seeds, he became a truly pitiable
object.

"They--they don't keep this place up on the same scale in the autumn,
you see," he explained weakly. "It's very different in summer; what they
call 'an endless round of amusements.'"

"There's an endless round of amusement now," observed Ada; "but it's a
naught!"

"Oh, there'll be something going on by-and-by, never fear," said Jauncy,
determined to be sanguine; "or else they wouldn't be open."

"There'll be dancing here this evening," the barmaid informed him. "That
is all we open for at this time of year; and this is the last night of
the season."

"Oh!" said Jauncy, cheerfully; "you see we only came just in time,
Bella; and I suppose you'll have a good many down here to-night--eh,
miss?"

"How much did we take last Saturday, Jenny?" said the barmaid to the
sharp little girl.

"Seven and fourpence 'ap'ny--most of it beer," said the child.
"Margaret, I may count the money again to-night, mayn't I?"

The barmaid made some mental calculation, after which she replied to
Jauncy's question. "We may have some fifteen couples or so down
to-night," she said; "but that won't be for half an hour yet."

"The question is," said Jauncy, trying to bear up under this last blow;
"the question is, How are we to amuse ourselves till the dancing
begins?"

"I don't know what others are going to do," Bella announced; "but I
shall stay here, James, and keep warm--if I can!" and once more she
uttered her regret that they had not gone to the Adelphi.

Her sister declined to follow her example. "I mean to see all there is
to be seen," she declared, "since we are here; and perhaps Mr. Tweddle
will come and take care of me. Will you, Mr. Tweddle?"

He was not sorry to comply, and they wandered out together through the
grounds, which offered considerable variety. There were alleys lined
with pale plaster statues, and a grove dedicated to the master minds of
the world, represented by huge busts, with more or less appropriate
quotations. There were alcoves, too, and neatly ruined castles.

Ada talked almost the whole time in a sprightly manner, which gave
Leander no opportunity of introducing the subject of his engagement, and
this continued until they had reached a small battlemented platform on
some rising ground; below were the black masses of trees, with a faint
fringe of light here and there; beyond lay the Thames, in which red and
white reflections quivered, and from whose distant bends and reaches
came the dull roar of fog-horns and the pantings of tugs.

Ada stood here in silence for some time; at last she said, "After all,
I'm not sorry we came--are _you_?"

"If I don't take care what I say, I _may_ be!" he thought, and answered
guardedly, "On the contrary, I'm glad, for it gives me the opportunity
of telling you something I--I think you ought to know."

"What was he going to say next?" she thought. Was a declaration coming,
and if so, should she accept him? She was not sure; he had behaved very
badly in keeping so long away from her, and a proposal would be a very
suitable form of apology; but there was the gentleman who travelled for
a certain firm in the Edgware Road, he had been very "particular" in his
attentions of late. Well, she would see how she felt when Leander had
spoken; he was beginning to speak now.

"I don't want to put it too abrupt," he said; "I'll come to it
gradually. There's a young lady that I'm now looking forward to spending
the whole of my future life with."

"And what is she called?" asked Ada. ("He's rather a nice little man,
after all!" she was thinking.)

"Matilda," he said; and the answer came like a blow in the face. For the
moment she hated him as bitterly as if he had been all the world to
her; but she carried off her mortification by a rather hysterical laugh.

"Fancy you being engaged!" she said, by way of explanation of her
merriment; "and to any one with the name of Matilda--it's such a stupid
sounding sort of name!"

"It ain't at all; it all depends how you say it. If you pronounce it
like I do, _Matilda_, it has rather a pretty sound. You try now."

"Well, we won't quarrel about it, Mr. Tweddle; I'm glad it isn't my
name, that's all. And now tell me all about your young lady. What's her
other name, and is she very good-looking?"

"She's a Miss Matilda Collum," said he; "she is considered handsome by
competent judges, and she keeps the books at a florist's in the vicinity
of Bayswater."

"And, if it isn't a rude question, why didn't you bring her with you
this evening?"

"Because she's away for a short holiday, and isn't coming back till the
last thing to-morrow night."

"And I suppose you've been wishing I was Matilda all the time?" she said
audaciously; for Miss Ada Parkinson was not an over-scrupulous young
person, and did not recognize in the fact of her friend's engagement any
reason why she should not attempt to reclaim his vagrant admiration.

Leander _had_ been guilty of this wish once or twice; but though he was
not absolutely overflowing with tact, he did refrain from admitting the
impeachment.

"Well, you see," he said, in not very happy evasion, "Matilda doesn't
care about this kind of thing; she's rather particular, Matilda is."

"And I'm not!" said Ada. "I see; thank you, Mr. Tweddle!"

"You do take one up so!" he complained. "I never intended nothing of the
sort--far from it."

"Well, then, I forgive you; we can't all be Matildas, I suppose. And
now, suppose we go back; they will be beginning to dance by now!"

"With pleasure," he said; "only you must excuse me dancing, because, as
an engaged man, I have had to renounce (except with one person) the
charms of Terpsy-chore. I mean," he explained condescendingly, "that I
can't dance in public save with my intended."

"Ah, well," said Ada, "perhaps Terpsy-chore will get over it; still I
should like to see the Terpsy-choring, if you have no objection."

And they returned to the Baronial Hall, which by this time presented a
more cheerful appearance. The lamps round the mirror-lined pillars were
all lit, and the musicians were just striking up the opening bars of the
Lancers; upon which several gentlemen amongst the assembly, which now
numbered about forty, ran out into the open and took up positions, like
colour-sergeants at drill, to be presently joined, in some bashfulness,
by such ladies as desired partners.

The Lancers were performed with extreme conscientiousness; and when it
was over, every gentleman with any _savoir faire_ to speak of presented
his partner with a glass of beer.

Then came a waltz, to which Ada beat time impatiently with her foot, and
bit her lip, as she had to look on by Leander's side.

"There's Bella and James going round," she said; "I've never had to sit
out a waltz before!"

He felt the implied reproach, and thought whether there could be any
harm, after all, in taking a turn or two; it would be only polite. But,
before he could recant in words, a soldier came up, a medium-sized
warrior with a large nose and round little eyes, who had been very funny
during the Lancers in directing all the figures by words of military
command.

"Will you allow me the honour, miss, of just one round?" he said to Ada,
respectfully enough.

The etiquette of this ballroom was not of the strictest; but she would
not have consented but for the desire of showing Leander that she was
not dependent upon him for her amusement. As it was, she accepted the
corporal's arm a little defiantly.

Leander watched them round the hall with an odd sensation, almost of
jealousy--it was quite ridiculous, because he could have danced with Ada
himself had he cared to do so; and besides, it was not she, but Matilda,
whom he adored.

But, as he began to notice, Ada was looking remarkably pretty that
evening, and really was a partner who would bring any one credit; and
her corporal danced villainously, revolving with stiff and wooden jerks,
like a toy soldier. Now Leander flattered himself he could waltz--having
had considerable practice in bygone days in a select assembly, where the
tickets were two shillings each, and the gentlemen, as the notices said
ambiguously enough, "were restricted to wearing gloves."

So he felt indignantly that Ada was not having justice done to her.
"I've a good mind to give her a turn," he thought, "and show them all
what waltzing is!"

Just then the pair happened to come to a halt close to him. "Shockin'
time they're playing this waltz in," he heard the soldier exclaim with
humorous vivacity (he was apparently the funny man of the regiment, and
had brought a silent but appreciative comrade with him as audience),
"abominable! excruciatin'! comic!! 'orrible!!!"

Leander seized the opportunity. "Excuse me," he said politely, "but if
you don't like the music, perhaps you wouldn't mind giving up this young
lady to me?"

"Oh come, I say!" said the man of war, running his fingers through his
short curly hair; "my good feller, you'd better see what the lady says
to that!" (He evidently had no doubt himself.)

"I'm very well content as I am, thank you all the same, Mr. Tweddle,"
said Ada, unkindly adding in a lower tone, "If you're so anxious to
dance, dance with Terpsy-chore!"

And again he was left to watch the whirling couples with melancholy
eyes. The corporal's brother-in-arms was wheeling round with a plain
young person, apparently in domestic service, whose face was overspread
by a large red smile of satiated ambition. James and Bella flitted by,
dancing vigorously, and Bella's discontent seemed to have vanished for
the time. There were jigging couples and prancing couples; couples that
bounced round like imprisoned bees, and couples that glided past in calm
and conscious superiority. He alone stood apart, excluded from the happy
throng, and he began to have a pathetic sense of injury.

But the music stopped at last, and Ada, dismissing her partner, came
towards him. "You don't seem to be enjoying yourself, Mr. Tweddle," she
said maliciously.

"Don't I?" he replied. "Well, so long as you are, it don't matter, Miss
Parkinson--it don't matter."

"But I'm not--at least, I didn't that dance," she said. "That soldier
man did talk such rubbish, and he trod on my feet twice. I'm so hot! I
wonder if it's cooler outside?"

"Will you come and see?" he suggested, and this time she did not disdain
his arm, and they strolled out together.

Following a path they had hitherto left unexplored, they came to a
little enclosure surrounded by tall shrubs; in the centre, upon a low
pedestal, stood a female statue, upon which a gas lamp, some paces off,
cast a flickering gleam athwart the foliage.

The exceptional grace and beauty of the figure would have been apparent
to any lover of art. She stood there, her right arm raised, partly in
gracious invitation, partly in queenly command, her left hand extended,
palm downwards, as if to be reverentially saluted. The hair was parted
in boldly indicated waves over the broad low brow, and confined by a
fillet in a large loose knot at the back. She was clad in a long chiton,
which lapped in soft zig-zag folds over the girdle and fell to the feet
in straight parallel lines, and a chlamys hanging from her shoulders
concealed the left arm to the elbow, while it left the right arm free.

In the uncertain light one could easily fancy soft eyes swimming in
those wide blank sockets, and the ripe lips were curved by a dreamy
smile, at once tender and disdainful.

Leander Tweddle and Miss Ada Parkinson, however, stood before the statue
in an unmoved, not to say critical, mood.

"Who's she supposed to be, I wonder?" asked the young lady, rather as if
the sculptor were a harmless lunatic whose delusions took a marble shape
occasionally. This, by the way, is a question which may frequently be
heard in picture galleries, and implies an enlightened tolerance.

"I don't know," said Leander; "a foreign female, I fancy--that's
Russian on the pedestal." He inferred this from a resemblance to the
characters on certain packets of cigarettes.

"But there's some English underneath," said Ada; "I can just make it
out. Ap--Apro--Aprodyte. What a funny name!"

"You haven't prenounced it quite correckly," he said; "out there they
sound the ph like a f, and give all the syllables--Afroddity." He felt a
kind of intuition that this was nearer the correct rendering.

"Well," observed Ada, "she's got a silly look, don't you think?"

Leander was less narrow, and gave it as his opinion that she had been
"done from a fine woman."

Ada remarked that she herself would never consent to be taken in so
unbecoming a costume. "One might as well have no figure at all in things
hanging down for all the world like a sack," she said.

Proceeding to details, she was struck by the smallness of the hands; and
it must be admitted that, although the statue as a whole was slightly
above the average female height, the arms from the elbow downwards, and
particularly the hands, were by no means in proportion, and almost
justified Miss Parkinson's objection, that "no woman could have hands so
small as that."

"I know some one who has--quite as small," said he softly.

Ada instantly drew off one of the crimson gloves and held out her hand
beside the statue's. It was a well-shaped hand, as she very well knew,
but it was decidedly larger than the one with which she compared it. "I
_said_ so," she observed; "now are you satisfied, Mr. Tweddle?"

But he had been thinking of a hand more slender and dainty than hers,
and allowed himself to admit as much. "I--I wasn't meaning you at all,"
he said bluntly.

She laughed a little jarring laugh. "Oh, Matilda, of course! Nobody is
like Matilda now! But come, Mr. Tweddle, you're not going to stand there
and tell me that this wonderful Matilda of yours has hands no bigger
than those?"

"She has been endowed with quite remarkable small hands," said he; "you
wouldn't believe it without seeing. It so happens," he added suddenly,
"that I can give you a very fair ideer of the size they are, for I've
got a ring of hers in my pocket at this moment. It came about this way:
my aunt (the same that used to let her second floor to James, and that
Matilda lodges with at present), my aunt, as soon as she heard of our
being engaged, nothing would do but I must give Matilda an old ring with
a posy inside it, that was in our family, and we soon found the ring was
too large to keep on, and I left it with old Vidler, near my place of
business, to be made tighter, and called for it on my way here this very
afternoon, and fortunately enough it was ready."

He took out the ring from its bed of pink cotton wool, and offered it to
Miss Parkinson.

"You see if you can get it on," he said; "try the little finger!"

She drew back, offended. "_I_ don't want to try it, thank you," she said
(she felt as if she might fling it into the bushes if she allowed
herself to touch it). "If you _must_ try it on somebody, there's the
statue! You'll find no difficulty in getting it on any of her
fingers--or thumbs," she added.

"You shall see," said Leander. "My belief is, it's too small for her, if
anything."

He was a true lover; anxious to vindicate his lady's perfections before
all the world, and perhaps to convince himself that his estimate was not
exaggerated. The proof was so easy, the statue's left hand hung
temptingly within his reach; he accepted the challenge, and slipped the
ring up the third finger, that was slightly raised as if to receive it.
The hand struck no chill, so moist and mild was the evening, but felt
warm and almost soft in his grasp.

"There," he said triumphantly, "it might have been made for her!"

[Illustration: "THERE," HE SAID TRIUMPHANTLY, "IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE
FOR HER!"]

"Well," said Ada, not too consistently, "I never said it mightn't!"

"Excuse me," said he, "but you said it would be too large for her; and,
if you'll believe me, it's as much as I can do to get it off her finger,
it fits that close."

"Well, make haste and get it off, Mr. Tweddle, do," said Ada,
impatiently. "I've stayed out quite long enough."

"In one moment," he replied; "it's quite a job, I declare, quite a job!"

"Oh, you men are so clumsy!" cried Ada. "Let _me_ try."

"No, no!" he said, rather irritably; "I can manage it," and he continued
to fumble.

At last he looked over his shoulder and said, "It's a singler
succumstance, but I can't get the ring past the bend of the finger."

Ada was cruel enough to burst out laughing. "It's a judgment upon you,
Mr. Tweddle!" she cried.

"You dared me to it!" he retorted. "It isn't friendly of you, I must
say, Miss Parkinson, to set there enjoying of it--it's bad taste!"

"Well, then, I'm very sorry, Mr. Tweddle; I won't laugh any more; but,
for goodness' sake, take me back to the Hall now."

"It's coming!" he said; "I'm working it over the joint now--it's coming
quite easily."

"But I can't wait here while it comes," she said. "Do you want me to go
back alone? You're not very polite to me this evening, I must say."

"What am I to do?" he said distractedly. "This ring is my engagement
ring; it's valuable. I can't go away without it!"

"The statue won't run away--you can come back again, by-and-by. You
don't expect me to spend the rest of the evening out here? I never
thought you could be rude to a lady, Mr. Tweddle."

"No more I can," he said. "Your wishes, Miss Ada, are equivocal to
commands; allow me the honour of reconducting you to the Baronial Hall."

He offered his arm in his best manner; she took it, and together they
passed out of the enclosure, leaving the statue in undisturbed
possession of the ring.




PLEASURE IN PURSUIT

II.

  "And you, great sculptor, so you gave
  A score of years to Art, her slave,
  And that's your Venus, whence we turn
  To yonder girl----"


Another waltz had just begun as they re-entered the Baronial Hall, and
Ada glanced up at her companion from her daring brown eyes. "What would
you say if I told you you might have this dance with me?" she inquired.

The hairdresser hesitated for just one moment. He had meant to leave her
there and go back for his ring; but the waltz they were playing was a
very enticing one. Ada was looking uncommonly pretty just then; he could
get the ring equally well a few minutes later.

"I should take it very kind of you," he said, gratefully, at length.

"Ask for it, then," said Ada; and he did ask for it.

He forgot Matilda and his engagement for the moment; he sacrificed all
his scruples about dancing in public; but he somehow failed to enjoy
this pleasure, illicit though it was.

For one thing, he could not long keep Matilda out of his thoughts. He
was doing nothing positively wrong; still, it was undeniable that she
would not approve of his being there at all, still less if she knew
that the gold ring given to him by his aunt for the purposes of his
betrothal had been left on the finger of a foreign statue, and exposed
to the mercy of any passer-by, while he waltzed with a bonnet-maker's
assistant.

And his conscience was awakened still further by the discovery that Ada
was a somewhat disappointing partner. "She's not so light as she used to
be," he thought, "and then she jumps. I'd forgotten she jumped."

Before the waltz was nearly over he led her back to a chair, alleging as
his excuse that he was afraid to abandon his ring any longer, and
hastened away to the spot where it was to be found.

He went along the same path, and soon came to an enclosure; but no
sooner had he entered it than he saw that he must have mistaken his way;
this was not the right place. There was no statue in the middle.

He was about to turn away, when he saw something that made him start; it
was a low pedestal in the centre, with the same characters upon it that
he had read with Ada. It was the place, after all; yes, he could not be
mistaken; he knew it now.

Where was the statue which had so lately occupied that pedestal? Had it
fallen over amongst the bushes? He felt about for it in vain. It must
have been removed for some purpose while he had been dancing; but by
whom, and why?

The best way to find out would be to ask some one in authority. The
manager was in the Baronial Hall, officiating as M.C.; he would go and
inquire whether the removal had been by his orders.

He was fortunate enough to catch him as he was coming out of the hall,
and he seized him by the arm with nervous haste. "Mister," he began,
"if you've found one of your plaster figures with a gold ring on, it's
mine. I--I put it on in a joking kind of way, and I had to leave it for
awhile; and now, when I come back for it, it's gone!"

"I'm sorry to hear it, sir," returned the manager; "but really, if you
will leave gold rings on our statues, we can't be responsible, you
know."

"But you'll excuse me," pursued Leander; "I don't think you quite
understood me. It isn't only the ring that's gone--it's the statue; and
if you've had it put up anywhere else----"

"Nonsense!" said the manager; "we don't move our statues about like
chessmen; you've forgotten where you left it, that's all. What was the
statue like?"

Leander described it as well as he could, and the manager, with a
somewhat altered manner, made him point out the spot where he believed
it to have stood, and they entered the grove together.

The man gave one rapid glance at the vacant pedestal, and then gripped
Leander by the shoulder, and looked at him long and hard by the feeble
light. "Answer me," he said, roughly; "is this some lark of yours?"

[Illustration: "ANSWER ME," HE SAID ROUGHLY; "IS THIS SOME LARK OF
YOURS?"]

"I look larky, don't I?" said poor Tweedle, dolefully. "I thought you'd
be sure to know where it was."

"I wish to heaven I did!" cried the manager, passionately; "it's those
impudent blackguards.... They've done it under my very nose!"

"If it's any of your men," suggested Leander, "can't you make them put
it back again?"

"It's not any of my men. I was warned, and, like a fool, I wouldn't
believe it could be done at a time like this; and now it's too late, and
what am I to say to the inspector? I wouldn't have had this happen for
a thousand pounds!"

"Well, it's kind of you to feel so put out about it," said Leander. "You
see, what makes the ring so valuable to me----"

The manager was pacing up and down impatiently, entirely ignoring his
presence.

"I say," Tweddle repeated, "the reason why that ring's of partickler
importance----"

"Oh, don't bother _me_!" said the other, shaking him off. "I don't want
to be uncivil, but I've got to think this out.... Infernal rascals!" he
went on muttering.

"Have the goodness to hear what I've got to say, though," persisted
Leander. "I'm mixed up in this, whether you like it or not. You seem to
know who's got this figure, and I've a right to be told too. I won't go
till I get that ring back; so now you understand me!"

"Confound you and your ring!" said the manager. "What's the good of
coming bully-ragging me about your ring? _I_ can't get you your ring!
You shouldn't have been fool enough to put it on one of our statues. You
make me talk to you like this, coming bothering when I've enough on my
mind as it is! Hang it! Can't you see I'm as anxious to get that statue
again as ever you can be? If I don't get it, I may be a ruined man, for
all I know; ain't that enough for you? Look here, take my advice, and
leave me alone before we have words over this. You give me your name and
address, and you may rely on hearing from me as soon as anything turns
up. You can do no good to yourself or any one else by making a row; so
go away quiet like a sensible chap!"

Leander felt stunned by the blow; evidently there was nothing to be done
but follow the manager's advice. He went to the office with him, and
gave his name and address in full, and then turned back alone to the
dancing-hall.

He had lost his ring--no ordinary trinket which he could purchase
anywhere, but one for which he would have to account--and to whom? To
his aunt and Matilda. How could he tell, when there was even a chance of
seeing it again?

If only he had not allowed himself that waltz; if only he had insisted
upon remaining by the statue until his ring was removed; if only he had
not been such an idiot as to put it on! None of these acts were wrong
exactly; but between them they had brought him to this.

And the chief person responsible was Miss Ada Parkinson, whom he dared
not reproach; for he was naturally unwilling that this last stage of the
affair should become known. He would have to dissemble, and he rejoined
his party with what he intended for a jaunty air.

"We've been waiting for you to go away," said Bella. "Where have you
been all this time?"

He saw with relief that Ada did not appear to have mentioned the statue,
and so he said he had been "strolling about."

"And Ada left to take care of herself!" said Bella, spitefully. "You are
polite, Mr. Tweddle, I must say!"

"I haven't complained, Bella, that I know of," said Ada. "And Mr.
Tweddle and I quite understand each other, don't we?"

"Oh!" said Bella, with an altered manner and a side-glance at James, "I
didn't know. I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure."

And then they left the gardens, and, after a substantial meal at a
riverside hotel, started on the homeward journey, with the sense that
their expedition had not been precisely a success.

As before, they had a railway compartment to themselves. Bella declined
to talk, and lay back in her corner with closed eyes and an expression
of undeserved suffering, whilst the unfortunate Jauncy sat silent and
miserable opposite.

Leander would have liked to be silent too, and think out his position;
but Ada would not hear of this. Her jealous resentment had apparently
vanished, and she was extremely lively and playful in her sallies.

This reached a pitch when she bent forward, and, in a whisper, which she
did not, perhaps, intend to be quite confidential, said, "Oh, Mr.
Tweddle, you never told me what became of the ring! Is it off at last?"

"Off? yes!" he said irritably, very nearly adding, "and the statue too."

"Weren't you very glad!" said she.

"Uncommonly," he replied grimly.

"Let me see it again, now you've got it back," she pleaded.

"You'll excuse me," he said; "but after what has taken place, I can't
show that ring to anybody."

"Then you're a cross thing!" said Ada, pouting.

"What's the matter with you two, over there?" asked Bella, sleepily.

Ada's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let me tell them; it is too awfully
funny. I _must_!" she whispered to Leander. "It's all about a ring," she
began, and enjoyed poor Tweddle's evident discomfort.

"A ring?" cried Bella, waking up. "Don't keep all the fun to yourselves;
we've not had so much of it this evening."

"Miss Ada," said Leander, in great agitation, "I ask you, as a lady, to
treat what has happened this evening in the strictest confidence for the
present!"

"Secrets, Ada?" cried her sister; "upon my word!"

"Why, where's the harm, Mr. Tweddle, now it's all settled?" exclaimed
Ada. "Bella, it was only this: he went and put a ring (now do wait till
I've done, Mr. Tweddle!) on a certain person's finger out in those
Rosherwich Gardens (you see, I've not said _whose_ finger)."

"Hullo, Tweddle!" cried Jauncy, in some bewilderment.

Leander could only cast a look of miserable appeal at him.

"Shall I tell them any more, Mr. Tweddle?" said Ada, persistently.

"I don't think there's any necessity," he pleaded.

"No more do I," put in Bella, archly. "I think we can guess the rest."

Ada did not absolutely make any further disclosures that evening; but
for the rest of the journey she amused herself by keeping the
hairdresser in perpetual torment by her pretended revelations, until he
was thoroughly disgusted.

No longer could he admire her liveliness; he could not even see that she
was good-looking now. "She's nothing but chaff, chaff, chaff!" he
thought. "Thank goodness, Matilda isn't given that way. Chaff before
marriage means nagging after!"

They reached the terminus at last, when he willingly said farewell to
the other three.

"Good-bye, Mr. Tweddle," said Bella, in rather a more cordial tone; "I
needn't hope _you_'ve enjoyed yourself!"

"You needn't!" he replied, almost savagely.

"Good night," said Ada; and added in a whisper, "Don't go and dream of
your statue-woman!"

"If I dream to-night at all," he said, between his teeth, "it will be a
nightmare!"

"I suppose, Tweddle, old chap," said Jauncy, as he shook hands, "you
know your own affairs best; but, if you meant what you told me coming
down, you've been going it, haven't you?"

He left Leander wondering impatiently what he meant. Did he know the
truth? Well, everybody might know it before long; there would probably
be a fuss about it all, and the best thing he could do would be to tell
Matilda at once, and throw himself upon her mercy. After all, it was
innocent enough--if she could only be brought to believe it.

He did not look forward to telling her; and by the time he reached the
Bank and got into an omnibus, he was in a highly nervous state, as the
following incident may serve to show.

He had taken one of those uncomfortable private omnibuses, where the
passengers are left in unlightened gloom. He sat by the door, and,
occupied as he was by his own misfortunes, paid little attention to his
surroundings.

But by-and-by, he became aware that the conductor, in collecting the
fares, was trying to attract the notice of some one who sat in the
further corner of the vehicle. "Where are you for, lady, please?" he
asked repeatedly, and at last, "_Will_ somebody ask the lady up the end
where I'm to set her down?" to all of which the eccentric person
addressed returned no reply whatever.

Leander's attention was thus directed to her; but, although in the
obscurity he could make out nothing but a dim form of grey, his nerves
were so unsettled that he felt a curiously uneasy fancy that eyes were
being fixed upon him in the darkness.

This continued until a moment when some electric lights suddenly flashed
into the omnibus as it passed, and lit up the whole interior with a
ghastly glare, in which the grey female became distinctly visible.

He caught his breath and shrank into the corner; for in that moment his
excited imagination had traced a strange resemblance to the figure he
had left in Rosherwich Gardens. The inherent improbability of finding a
classical statue seated in an omnibus did not occur to him, in the state
his mind was in just then. He sat there fascinated, until lights shone
in once more, and he saw, or thought he saw, the figure slowly raise her
hand and beckon to him.

That was enough; he started up with a smothered cry, thrust a coin into
the conductor's hand, and, without waiting for change, flung himself
from the omnibus in full motion.

When its varnished sides had ceased to gleam in the light of the lamps,
and its lumbering form had been swallowed up in the autumn haze, he
began to feel what a coward his imagination had made of him.

"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?"

[Illustration: "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
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.

[Illustration: "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
crash 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?"

"Flaw in the mirror, sir; when you move your 'ed, you do ketch that
effect. I've observed it myself frequent. Chin cut, sir? My fault--my
fault entirely," he admitted handsomely.

The young man was shaved by this time, and had risen to receive his hat
and cane, when he gave a violent start as he passed the Aphrodite.
"There!" he said, breathlessly, "look at that, Tweddle; she's going to
punch my head! I suppose you'll tell me _that's_ the glass?"

Leander trembled--this time for his own reputation; for the report that
he kept a mysterious and pugnacious statue on the premises would not
increase his custom. He must silence it, if possible. "I'm afraid it is,
sir--in a way," he remarked, compassionately.

The young man turned paler still. "No!" he exclaimed. "You don't think
it is, though? Don't you see anything yourself? I don't either, Tweddle;
I was chaffing, that's all. I know I'm a wee bit off colour; but it's
not so bad as that. Keep off! Tell her to drop it, Tweddle!"

[Illustration: "KEEP OFF! TELL HER TO DROP IT, TWEDDLE!"]

For, as he spoke, the goddess had made a stride towards him. "Miserable
one!" she cried, "you have mangled one of my birds. Hence, or I crush
thee!"

"Tweddle! Tweddle!" cried the youth, taking refuge in the other shop,
"don't let her come after me! What's she talking about, eh? You
shouldn't have these things about; they're--they're not _right_!"

Leander shut the glass door and placed himself before it, while he tried
to assume a concerned interest. "You take my advice, sir," he said; "you
go home and keep steady."

"Is it that?" murmured the customer. "Great Scott! I must be bad!" and
he went out into the street, shaking.

"I don't believe I shall ever see _him_ again, either," thought Leander.
"She'll drive 'em all away if she goes on like this." But here a sudden
recollection struck him, and he slapped his thigh with glee. "Why, of
course," he said, "that's it. I've downright disgusted her; it was me
she was most put out with, and after this she'll leave me alone. Hooray!
I'll shut up everything first and get rid of the boy, and then go in and
see her, and get away to Matilda."

When the shop was secured for the night, he re-entered the saloon with a
light step. "Well, mum," he began, "you've seen me at work, and you've
thought better of what you were proposing, haven't you now?"

"Where is the wretched stripling who dared to slay my dove?" she cried.
"Bring him to me!"

"What _are_ you a-talking about now?" cried the bewildered Leander.
"Who's been touching your birds? I wasn't aware you _kept_ birds."

"Many birds are sacred to me--the silver swan, the fearless sparrow,
and, chief of all, the coral-footed dove. And one of these has that
monster slain--his own mouth hath spoken it."

"Oh! is that all?" said Leander. "Why, he wasn't talking about a real
dove; it was a ballet girl he meant. I can't explain the difference; but
they _are_ different. And it's all talk, too. I know him; _he's_
harmless enough. And now, mum, to come to the point; you've now had the
opportunity of forming some ideer of my calling. You've thought better
of it, haven't you?"

"Better! ay, far better!" she cried, in a voice that thrilled with
pride. "Leander, too modestly you have rated yourself, for surely you
are great amongst the sons of men."

"_Me!_" he gasped, utterly overcome. "How do you make that out?"

"Do you not compel them to furnish sport for you? Have I not seen them
come in, talking boldly and loud, and yet seat themselves submissively
at a sign from you? And do you not swathe them in the garb of
humiliation, and daub their countenances with whiteness, and threaten
their bared throats with the gleaming knife, and grind their heads under
the resistless wheel? Then, having in disdain granted them their
worthless lives, you set them free; and they propitiate you with a gift,
and depart trembling."

"Well, of all the topsy-turvy contrariness!" he protested. "You've got
it _all_ wrong; I declare you have! But I'll put you right, if it's
possible to do it." And he launched into a lengthy explanation of the
wonders she had seen, at the end of which he inquired, "_Now_ do you
understand I'm nobody in particular?"

"It may be so," she admitted; "but what of that? Ere this have I been
wild with love for a herdsman on Phrygian hills. Aye, Adonis have I
kissed in the oakwood, and bewailed his loss. And did not Selene
descend to woo the neatherd Endymion? Wherefore, then, should I scorn
thee? and what are the differences and degrees of mortals to such as I!
Be bold; distrust your merits no longer, since I, who amongst the
goddesses obtained the prize of beauty, have chosen you for my own."

"I don't care what prizes you won," he said, sulkily; "I'm not yours,
and I don't intend to be, either." He was watching the clock impatiently
all the while, for it was growing very near nine.

"It is vain to struggle," she said, "since not the gods themselves can
resist Fate. We must yield, and contend not."

"You begin it, then," he said. "Give me my ring."

"The sole symbol of my power! the charm which has called me from my long
sleep! Never!"

"Then," said Leander, knowing full well that his threat was an
impossible one, "I shall place the matter in the hands of a respectable
lawyer."

"I understand you not; but it is no matter. In time I shall prevail."

"Well, mum, you must come again another evening, if you've no
objection," said Leander, rudely, "because I've got to go out just now."

"I will accompany you," she said.

Leander nearly danced with frenzy. Take the statue with him to meet his
dear Matilda! He dared not. "You're very kind," he stammered, perspiring
freely; "but I couldn't think of taking you out such a foggy evening."

"Have no cares for me," she answered; "we will go together. You shall
explain to me the ways of this changed world."

"Catch _me_!" was Leander's elliptical comment to himself; but he had
to pretend a delighted acquiescence. "Well," he cried, "if I hadn't been
thinking how lonely it would be going out alone! and now I shall have
the honour of your company, mum. You wait a bit here, while I run
upstairs and fetch my 'at."

But the perfidious man only waited until he was on the other side of the
door, which led from the saloon to his staircase, to lock it after him,
and slip out by the private door into the street.

"Now, my lady," he thought triumphantly, "you're safe for awhile, at all
events. I've put up the shutters, and so you won't get out that way. And
now for Tillie!"




TWO ARE COMPANY

VI.

                      "The shape
  Which has made escape,
  And before my countenance
  Answers me glance for glance."

                _Mesmerism._


Leander hastened eagerly to his trysting-place. All these obstacles and
difficulties had rendered his Matilda tenfold dearer and more precious
to him; and besides, it was more than a fortnight since he had last seen
her. But he was troubled and anxious still at the recollection of the
Greek statue shut up in his hair-cutting saloon. What would Matilda say
if she knew about it; and still worse, what might it not do if it knew
about her? Matilda might decline to continue his acquaintance--for she
was a very right-minded girl--unless Venus, like the jealous and
vindictive heathen she had shown herself to be, were to crush her before
she even had the opportunity.

"It's a mess," he thought disconsolately, "whatever way I look at it.
But after to-night I won't meet Matilda any more while I've got that
statue staying with me, or no one could tell the consequences." However,
when he drew near the appointed spot, and saw the slender form which
awaited him there by the railings, he forgot all but the present joy.
Even the memory of the terrible divinity could not live in the wholesome
presence of the girl he had the sense to truly and honestly love.

Matilda Collum was straight and slim, though not tall; she had a neat
little head of light brown hair, which curled round her temples in soft
rings; her complexion was healthily pale, with the slightest tinge of
delicate pink in it; she had a round but decided chin, and her grey eyes
were large and innocently severe, except on the rare occasions when she
laughed, and then their expression was almost childlike in its gaiety.

Generally, and especially in business hours, her pretty face was calm
and slightly haughty, and rash male customers who attempted to make the
choice of a "button-hole" an excuse for flirtation were not encouraged
to persevere. She was seldom demonstrative to Leander--it was not her
way--but she accepted his effusive affection very contentedly, and,
indeed, returned it more heartily than her principles allowed her to
admit; for she secretly admired his spirit and fluency, and, as is often
the case in her class of life, had no idea that she was essentially her
lover's superior.

After the first greetings, they walked slowly round the square together,
his arm around her waist. Neither said very much for some minutes, but
Leander was wildly, foolishly happy, and there was no severity in
Matilda's eyes when they shone in the lamp-light.

"Well," he said, at last, "and so I've actually got you safe back again,
my dear, darling Tillie! It seems like a long eternity since last we
met. I've been so beastly miserable, Matilda!"

"You do seem to have got thinner in the face, Leander dear," said
Matilda, compassionately. "What _have_ you been doing while I've been
away?"

"Only wishing my dearest girl back, that's all _I've_ been doing."

"What! haven't you given yourself any enjoyment at all--not gone out
anywhere all the time?"

"Not once--leastwise, that is to say----" A guilty memory of Rosherwich
made him bungle here.

"Why, of course I didn't expect you to stop indoors all the time," said
Matilda, noticing the amendment, "so long as you never went where you
wouldn't take me."

Oh, conscience, conscience! But Rosherwich didn't count--it was outside
the radius; and besides, he _hadn't_ enjoyed himself.

"Well," he said, "I did go out one evening, to hear a lecture on
Astronomy at the Town Hall, in the Gray's Inn Road; but then I had the
ticket given me by a customer, and I reely was surprised to find how
regular the stars was in their habits, comets and all. But my 'Tilda is
the only star of the evening for me, to-night. I don't want to talk
about anything else."

The diversion was successful, and Matilda asked no more inconvenient
questions. Presently she happened to cough slightly, and he touched
accusingly the light summer cloak she was wearing.

"You're not dressed warm enough for a night like this," he said, with a
lover's concern. "Haven't you got anything thicker to put on than that?"

"I haven't bought my winter things yet," said Matilda; "it was so mild,
that I thought I'd wait till I could afford it better. But I've chosen
the very thing I mean to buy. You know Mrs. Twilling's, at the top of
the Row, the corner shop? Well, in the window there's a perfectly lovely
long cloak, all lined with squirrel's fur, and with those nice oxidized
silver fastenings. A cloak like that lasts ever so long, and will always
look neat and quiet; and any one can wear it without being stared
after; so I mean to buy it as soon as it turns really cold."

"Ah!" said he, "I can't have you ketching cold, you know; it ain't
summer any longer, and I--I've been thinking we must give up our evening
strolls together for the present."

"When you've just been saying how miserable you've been without them.
Oh, Leander!"

"Without _you_," he amended lamely. "I shall see you at aunt's, of
course; only we'd better suspend the walks while the nights are so raw.
And, oh, Tillie, ere long you will be mine, my little wife! Only to
think of you keeping the books for me with your own pretty little
fingers, and sending out the bills! (not that I give much credit). Ah,
what a blissful dream it sounds! Does it to you, Matilda?"

"I'm not sure that you keep your books the same way as we do," she
replied demurely; "but I dare say"--(and this was a great concession for
Matilda)--"I dare say we shall suit one another."

"Suit one another!" he cried. "Ah! we shall be inseparable as a brush
and comb, Tillie, if you'll excuse so puffessional a stimulus. And what
a future lies before me! If I can only succeed in introducing some of my
inventions to public notice, we may rise, Tilly, 'like an exclamation,'
as the poet says. I believe my new nasal splint has only to be known to
become universally worn; and I've been thinking out a little machine
lately for imparting a patrician arch to the flattest foot, that ought
to have an extensive run. I almost wish you weren't so pretty, Tillie.
I've studied you careful, and I'm bound to say, as it is there really
isn't room for any improvement I could suggest. Nature's beaten me
there, and I'm not too proud to own it."

"Would you rather there _was_ room!" inquired Matilda.

"From a puffessional point of view, it would have inspired me," he said.
"It would have suggested ideers, and I shouldn't have loved you less,
not if you hadn't had a tooth in your mouth nor a hair on your head; you
would still be my beautiful Tillie."

"I would rather be as I am, thank you," said Matilda, to whom this fancy
sketch did not appeal. "And now, let's talk about something else. Do you
know that mamma is coming up to town at the end of the week on purpose
to see you?"

"No," said Leander, "I--I didn't."

"Yes, she's taken the whole of your aunt's first floor for a week. (You
know, she knew Miss Tweddle when she was younger, and that was how I
came to lodge there, and to meet you.) Do you remember that Sunday
afternoon you came to tea, and your aunt invited me in, because she
thought I must be feeling so dull, all alone?"

"Ah, I should think I did! Do you remember I helped to toast the
crumpets? What a halcyon evening that was, Matilda!"

"Was it?" she said. "I don't remember the weather exactly; but it was
nice indoors."

"But, I say, Tillie, my own," he said, somewhat anxiously, "how does
your ma like your being engaged to me?"

"Well, I don't think she does like it quite," said Matilda. "She says
she will reserve her consent till she sees whether you are worthy; but
directly she sees you, Leander, her objections will vanish."

"She has got objections, then? What to?"

"Mother always wanted me to keep my affections out of trade," said
Matilda. "You see, she never can forget what poor papa was."

"And what was your poor papa?" asked Leander.

"Didn't you know? He was a dentist, and that makes mamma so very
particular, you see."

"But, hang it, Matilda! you're employed in a flower-shop, you know."

"Yes, but mamma never really approved of it; only she had to give way
because she couldn't afford to keep me at home, and I scorned to go out
as a governess. Never mind, Leander; when she comes to know you and hear
your conversation, she will relent; her pride will melt."

"But suppose it keeps solid; what will you do, Matilda?"

"I am independent, Leander; and though I would prefer to marry with
mamma's approval, I shouldn't feel bound to wait for it. So long as you
are all I think you are, I shouldn't allow any one to dictate to me."

"Bless you for those words, my angelic girl!" he said, and hugged her
close to his breast. "Now I can beard your ma with a light 'art. Oh,
Matilda! you can form no ideer how I worship you. Nothing shall ever
come betwixt us two, shall it?"

"Nothing, as far as I am concerned, Leander," she replied. "What's the
matter?"

He had given a furtive glance behind him after the last remarks, and his
embrace suddenly relaxed, until his arm was withdrawn altogether.

"Nothing is the matter, Matilda," he said. "Doesn't the moon look red
through the fog?"

"Is that why you took away your arm?" she inquired.

"Yes--that is, no. It occurred to me I was rendering you too
conspicuous; we don't want to go about advertising ourselves, you know."

"But who is there here to notice?" asked Matilda.

"Nobody," he said; "oh, nobody! but we mustn't get into the _way_ of
it;" and he cast another furtive rearward look. In the full flow of his
raptures the miserable hairdresser had seen a sight which had frozen his
very marrow--a tall form, in flowing drapery, gliding up behind with a
tigress-like stealth. The statue had broken out, in spite of all his
precautions! Venus, jealous and exacting, was near enough to overhear
every word, and he could scarcely hope she had escaped seeing the arm he
had thrown round Matilda's waist.

"You were going to tell me how you worshipped me," said Matilda.

"I didn't say _worship_," he protested; "it--it's only images and such
that expect that. But I can tell you there's very few brothers feel to
you as I feel."

"_Brothers_, Leander!" exclaimed Matilda, and walked farther apart from
him.

"Yes," he said. "After all, what tie's closer than a brother? A uncle's
all very well, and similarly a cousin; but they can't feel like a
brother does, for brothers they are not."

"I should have thought there were ties still closer," said Matilda; "you
seemed to think so too, once."

"Oh, ah! _that_!" he said. (Every frigid word gave him a pang to utter;
but it was all for Matilda's sake.) "There's time enough to think of
that, my girl; we mustn't be in a hurry."

"I'm _not_ in a hurry," said Matilda.

"That's the proper way to look at it," said he; "and meanwhile I haven't
got a sister I'm fonder of than I am of you."

"If you've nothing more to say than that, we had better part," she
remarked; and he caught at the suggestion with obvious relief. He had
been in an agony of terror, lest, even in the gathering fog, she should
detect that they were watched; and then, too, it was better to part with
her under a temporary misconception than part with her altogether.

"Well," he said, "I mustn't keep you out any longer, with that cold."

"You are very ready to get rid of me," said poor Matilda.

"The real truth is," he answered, simulating a yawn with a heavy heart;
"I am most uncommon sleepy to-night, and all this standing about is too
much for me. So good-bye, and take care of yourself!"

"I needn't say that to you," she said; "but I won't keep you up a minute
longer. I wonder you troubled to come out at all."

"Oh," he said, carefully keeping as much in front of the statue as he
could, "it's no trouble; but you'll excuse me seeing you to the door
this evening?"

"Oh, certainly," said Matilda, biting her lip. She touched his hand with
the ends of her fingers, and hurried away without turning her head.

When she was out of sight, Leander faced round to the irrepressible
goddess. He was in a white rage; but terror and caution made him
suppress it to some extent.

"So here you are again!" he said.

"Why did you not wait for me?" she answered. "I remained long for you;
you came not, and I followed."

"I see you did," said the aggrieved Leander; "I can't say I like being
spied upon. If you're a goddess, act as such!"

"What! you dare to upbraid me?" she cried. "Beware, or I----"

"I know," said Leander, flinching from her. "Don't do that; I only made
a remark."

"I have the right to follow you; I choose to do so."

"If you must, you must," he groaned; "but it does seem hard that I
mayn't slip out for a few minutes' talk with my only sister."

"You said you were going to run for business, and you told me you had
three sisters."

"So I have; but only one _youngest_ one."

"And why did they not all come to talk with you?"

"I suppose because the other two stayed at home," rejoined Leander,
sulkily.

"I know not why, but I doubt you; that one who came, she is not like
you!"

"No," said Leander, with a great show of candour, "that's what every one
says; all our family are like that; we are like in a way, because we're
all of us so different. You can tell us anywhere just by the difference.
My father and mother were both very unlike: I suppose we take after
them."

The goddess seemed satisfied with this explanation. "And now that I have
regained you, let us return to your abode," she said; and Leander walked
back by her side, a prey to rage and humiliation.

"It is a miserable thing," he was thinking, "for a man in my rank of
life to have a female statue trotting after him like a great dorg. I'm
d----d if I put up with it! Suppose we happen on somebody as knows me!"

[Illustration: "IT IS A MISERABLE THING," HE WAS THINKING, "FOR A MAN
... TO HAVE A FEMALE STATUE TROTTING AFTER HIM LIKE A GREAT DORG."]

Fortunately, at that time of night Bloomsbury Square is not much
frequented; the increasing fog prevented the apparition of a female in
classical garments from attracting the notice to which it might
otherwise have been exposed, and they reached the shop without any
disagreeable encounter.

"She shan't stop in the saloon," he determined; "I've had enough of
that! If you've no objections," he said, with a mixture of deference and
dictation, "I shall be obliged if you'd settle yourself in the little
shrine in the upstairs room before proceeding to evaporate out of your
statue; it would be more agreeable to my feelings."

"Ah!" she said, smiling, "you would have me nearer you? Your stubborn
heart is yielding; a little while, and you will own the power of
Aphrodite!"

"Now, don't you go deceiving yourself with any such ideers," said the
hairdresser, irritably. "I shan't do no such thing, so you needn't think
it. And, to come to the point, how long do you mean to carry on this
little game?"

"Game?" repeated the goddess, absently.

"How long are you going to foller me about in this ridiclous way?"

"Till you submit, and profess your willingness to redeem your promise."

"Oh, and you're coming every evening till then, are you?"

"At nightfall of each day I have power to revisit you."

"Well, come then!" he said, with a fling of impatient anger. "I tell you
beforehand that you won't get anything by it. Not if you was to come and
bring a whole stonemason's yard of sculptures along with you, you
wouldn't! You ought to know better than to come pestering a respectable
tradesman in this bold-faced manner!"

She smiled with a languid contemptuous tolerance, which maddened
Leander.

"Rave on," she said. "Truly, you are a sorry prize for such as I to
stoop to win; yet I will it, nor shall you escape me. There will come a
day when, forsaken by all you hold dear on earth, despised, ruined,
distracted, you will pray eagerly for the haven of refuge to which I
alone can guide you. Take heed, lest your conduct now be remembered
then! I have spoken."

They were indeed her last words that evening, and they impressed the
hairdresser, in spite of himself. Custom habituates the mind to any
marvel, and already he had overcome his first horror at the periodical
awakenings of the statue, and surprise was swallowed up by exasperation;
now, however, he quailed under her dark threats. Could it ever really
come to pass that he would sue to this stone to hide him in the realms
of the supernatural?

"I know this," he told himself, "if it once gets about that there's a
hairdresser to be seen in Bloomsbury chivied about after dark by a
classical statue, I shan't dare to show my face. Yet I don't know how
I'm to prevent her coming out after me, at all events now and then. If
she was only a little more like other people, I shouldn't mind so much;
but it's more than I can bear to have to go about with a _tablow vivant_
or a _pose plastique_ on my arm!"

All at once he started to his feet. "I've got it!" he cried, and went
downstairs to his laboratory, to reappear with some camel-hair brushes,
grease-paints, and a selection from his less important discoveries in
the science of cosmetics; namely, an "eyebrow accentuator," a vase of
"Tweddle's Cream of Carnations" and "Blondinette Bloom," a china box of
"Conserve of Coral" for the lips, and one of his most expensive
_chevelures_.

He was trembling as he arranged them upon his table; not that he was
aware of the enormity of the act he contemplated, but he was afraid the
goddess might revisit the marble while he was engaged upon it.

He furnished the blank eye-sockets with a pair of eyes, which, if not
exactly artistic, at least supplied a want; he pencilled the eyebrows,
laid on several coats of the "Bloom," which he suffused cunningly with a
tinge of carnation, and stained the pouting lips with his "Conserve of
Coral."

So far, perhaps, he had not violated the canons of art, and may even
have restored to the image something of its pristine hues; but his next
addition was one the vandalism of which admits of no possible defence,
and wh