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."