Scarcely had she done so, as the chemist was retiring with the ring to one of his lamps, before the goddess seemed suddenly aware that she had committed a fatal error.
She made a stride forward to follow and recover it; but, as if some unseen force was restraining her, she stopped short, and a rush of whirling words, in some tongue unknown both to Leander and the chemist, forced its way through lips that smiled still, though they were freezing fast.
Then, with a strange hoarse cry of baffled desire and revenge, she succeeded, by a violent effort, in turning, and bore down with tremendous force upon the cowering hairdresser, who gave himself up at once for lost.
But the marble was already incapable of obeying her will. Within a few paces from him the statue stopped for the last time, with an abruptness that left it quivering and rocking. A greyish hue came over the face, causing the borrowed tints to stand forth, crude and glaring; the arms waved wildly and impotently once or twice, and then grew still for ever, in the attitude conceived long since by the Grecian sculptor!
Leander was free! His hazardous experiment had succeeded. As it was the ring which had brought the passionate, imperious goddess into her marble counterfeit, so—the ring once withdrawn—her power was instantly at an end, and the spell which had enabled her to assume a form of stone was broken.
He had hoped for this, had counted upon it, but even yet hardly dared to believe in his deliverance.
He had not done with it yet, however; for he would have to get the statue out of that shop, and abandon it in some manner which would not compromise himself, and it is by no means an easy matter to mislay a life-size and invaluable antique without attracting an inconvenient amount of attention.
The chemist, who had been staring meanwhile in blank astonishment, now looked inquiringly at Leander, who looked helplessly at him.
At last the latter, unable to be silent any longer, said, "The lady seems unwell, sir."
"Why," Leander admitted, "she does appear a little out of sorts."