"I can't say, I'm sure," said Leander; "I could inquire for you."
"I myself will seek for them," she said proudly. "I will go forth this very night."
Leander choked. "To-night!" he cried. "You can't go to-night."
"You forget yourself," she returned haughtily.
"If I let you go," he said hesitatingly, "will you promise faithfully to be back in half an hour?"
"Do you not yet understand that you have to do with a goddess—with Aphrodite herself?" she said. "Who are you, to presume to fetter me by your restrictions? Truly, the indulgence I have shown has turned your weak brain."
He put his back against the door. He was afraid of the goddess, but he was still more afraid of the burglars' vengeance if they arrived to find the prize missing.
"I'm sorry to disoblige a lady," he said; "but you don't go out of this house to-night."
In another minute he was lying in the fender amongst the fireirons—alone! How it was done he was too stunned to remember; but the goddess was gone. If she did not return by midnight, what would become of him? If he had only been civil to her, she might have stayed; but now she had abandoned him to certain destruction!
A kind of fatalistic stupor seized him. He would not run away—he would have to come home some time—nor would he call in the police, for he had a very vivid recollection of Mr. Braddle's threat in such a contingency.