"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.