Outside on the stairs Leander suddenly remembered that his purpose might be as far as ever from being accomplished. The house was being watched: to be seen leaving it would procure his instant arrest. Hastily excusing himself to the goddess, he rushed down to his laboratory, where he knew there was a magnificent beard and moustache which he had been constructing for some amateur theatricals. With these, and a soft felt hat, he completed a disguise in which he flattered himself he was unrecognisable. The goddess, however, penetrated it as soon as he rejoined her. "Why have you thus transformed yourself?" she inquired coldly. "Because," explained Leander, "seeing the police are all on the look-out for me, I thought it couldn't do any harm." "It is useless!" she returned. "To be sure," he agreed blankly, "they'll expect me to go out disguised. If only they aren't up to the way out by the back! That's our only chance now." "Leave all to me," she replied calmly; "with Aphrodite you are safe." And he never did quite understand how that strange elopement was effected, or even remember whether they left the house from the front or rear. The statue glided swiftly on, and, grasping a corner of her robe, he followed, with only the vaguest sense of obstacles overcome and passed as in a dream. By the time he had completely regained his senses he was in a crowded thoroughfare, which he recognised as the Gray's Inn Road. A certain scheme from which, desperate as it was, he hoped much, might be executed as well here as elsewhere, and he looked about him for the aid on which he counted. "Where, then, lives the wise man whom you would consult?" said Aphrodite. Leander went on until he could see the coloured lights of a chemist's window, and then he said, "There--right opposite!" He felt strangely nervous himself, but the goddess seemed even more so. She hung back all at once, and clutched his arm in her marble grasp. "Leander," she said, "I will not go! See those liquid fires glowing in lurid hues, like the eyes of some dread monster! This test of yours is needless, and I fear it." "Lady Venus," he said earnestly, "I do assure you they're only big bottles, and quite harmless too, having water in them, not physic. You've no call to be alarmed." She yielded, and they crossed the road. The shop was small and unpretending. In the window the chief ornaments were speckled plaster limbs clad in elastic socks, and photographs of hideous complaints before and after treatment with a celebrated ointment; and there were certain trophies which indicated that the chemist numbered dentistry among his accomplishments. Inside, the odour of drugs prevailed, in the absence of the subtle perfume that is part of the fittings of a fashionable apothecary, and on the very threshold the goddess paused irresolute. "There is magic in the air," she exclaimed, "and fearful poisons. This man is some enchanter!"