"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. |
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