"No," said Leander, with a great show of candour, "that's what every one says; all our family are like that; we are like in a way, because we're all of us so different. You can tell us anywhere just by the difference. My father and mother were both very unlike: I suppose we take after them."
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!"
"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?"