"I never heard of you before," said Matilda, "but I'm not afraid of you.
And, whoever or whatever you are, you shall not take my Leander away against his will. Do you hear? You could never be allowed to do that!"
The statue smiled with pitying scorn. "His own act has given me the power I hold," she said, "and assuredly he shall not escape me!"
"Listen," pleaded Matilda; "perhaps you are not really wicked, it is only that you don't know! The ring he put--without ever thinking what he was doing--on your finger was meant for mine. It was, really! He is my lover; give him back to me!"
"Matilda!" shrieked the wretched man, "you don't know what you're doing.
Run away, quick! Do as I tell you!"
"So," said the goddess, turning upon him, "in this, too, you have tried to deceive me! You have loved--you still love this maiden!"
"Oh, not in that way!" he shouted, overcome by his terror for Matilda.
"There's some mistake. You mustn't pay any attention to what she says: she's excited. All my sisters get like that when they're excited--they'd say _any_thing!"
"Silence!" commanded the statue. "Should not I have skill to read the signs of love? This girl loves you with no sister's love. Deny it not!"
Leander felt that his position was becoming untenable; he could only save Matilda by a partial abandonment. "Well, suppose she does," he said, "I'm not obliged to return it, am I?"
Matilda shrank back. "Oh, Leander!" she cried, with a piteous little moan.
"You've brought it on yourself!" he said; "you will come here interfering!"
"Interfering!" she repeated wildly, "you call it that! How can I help myself? Am I to stand by and see you giving yourself up to, nobody can tell what? As long as I have strength to move and breath to speak I shall stay here, and beg and pray of you not to be so foolish and wicked as to go away with her! How do you know where she will take you to?"
"Cease this railing!" said the statue. "Leander loves you not! Away, then, before I lay you dead at my feet!"
"Leander," cried the poor girl, "tell me: it isn't true what she says?
You didn't mean it! you _do_ love me! You don't really want me to go away?"
For her own sake he must be cruel; but he could scarcely speak the words that were to drive her from his side for ever. "This--this lady," he said, "speaks quite correct. I--I'd very much rather you went!"
She drew a deep sobbing breath. "I don't care for anything any more!"
she said, and faced the statue defiantly. "You say you can strike me dead," she said: "I'm sure I hope you can! And the sooner the better--for I will not leave this room!"
The dreamy smile still curved the statue's lips, in terrible contrast to the inflexible purpose of her next words.
"You have called down your own destruction," she said, "and death shall be yours!"
"Stop a bit," cried Leander, "mind what you're doing! Do you think I'll go with you if you touch a single hair of my poor Tillie's head? Why, I'd sooner stay in prison all my life! See here," and he put his arm round Matilda's slight form; "if you crush her, you crush me--so now!"
"And if so," said the goddess, with cruel contempt, "are you of such value in my sight that I should stay my hand? You, whom I have sought but to manifest my power, for no softer feelings have you ever inspired! And now, having withstood me for so long, you turn, even at the moment of yielding, to yonder creature! And it is enough. I will contend no longer for so mean a prize! Slave and fool that you have shown yourself, Aphrodite rejects you in disdain!"
Leander made no secret of his satisfaction at this. "Now you talk sense!" he cried. "I always told you we weren't suited. Tillie, do you hear? She gives me up! She gives me up!"
"Aye," she continued, "I need you not. Upon you and the maiden by your side I invoke a speedy and terrible destruction, which, ere you can attempt to flee, shall surely overtake you!"
Leander was so overcome by this highly unexpected sentence that he lost all control over his limbs; he could only stand where he was, supporting Matilda, and stare at the goddess in fascinated dismay.
The goddess was raising both hands, palm upwards, to the ceiling, and presently she began to chant in a thrilling monotone: "Hear, O Zeus, that sittest on high, delighting in the thunder, hear the prayer of thy daughter, Aphrodite the peerless, as she calleth upon thee, nor suffer her to be set at nought with impunity! Rise now, I beseech thee, and hurl with thine unerring hand a blazing bolt that shall consume these presumptuous insects to a smoking cinder! Blast them, Sire, with the fire-wreaths of thy lightning! blast, and spare not!"
"Kiss me, Tillie, and shut your eyes," said Leander; "it's coming!"
She was nestling close against him, and could not repress a faint shivering moan. "I don't mind, now we're together," she whispered, "if only it won't hurt much!"
The prayer uttered with such deadly intensity had almost ceased to vibrate in their ears, but still the answer tarried; it tarried so long that Leander lost patience, and ventured to open his eyes a little way.
He saw the goddess standing there, with a strained expectation on her upturned face.
"I don't wish to hurry you, mum," he said tremulously; "but you ought to be above torturing us. Might I ask you to request your--your relation to look sharp with that thunderbolt?"
"Zeus!" cried the goddess, and her accent was more acute, "thou hast heard--thou wilt not shame me thus! Must I go unavenged?"
Still nothing whatever happened, until at last even Matilda unclosed her eyes. "Leander!" she cried, with a hysterical little laugh, "_I don't believe she can do it!_"
[Illustration: "LEANDER!" SHE CRIED, ... "I DON'T BELIEVE SHE CAN DO IT!"]
"No more don't I!" said the hairdresser, withdrawing his arm, and coming forward boldly. "Now look here, Lady Venus," he remarked, "it's time there was an end of this, one way or the other; we can't be kept up here all night, waiting till it suits your Mr. Zooce to make cockshies of us.
Either let him do it now, or let it alone!"
The statue's face seemed to be illumined by a stronger light. "Zeus, I thank thee!" she exclaimed, clasping her pale hands above her head; "I am answered! I am answered!"
And, as she spoke, a dull ominous rumble was heard in the distance.
"Matilda, here!" cried the terrified hairdresser, running back to his betrothed; "keep close to me. It's all over this time!"
The rumble increased to a roll, which became a clanking rattle, and then lessened again to a roll, died away to the original rumble, and was heard no more.
Leander breathed again. "To think of my being taken in like that!" he cried. "Why, it's only a van out in the street! It's no good, mum; you can't work it: you'd better give it up!"
The goddess seemed to feel this herself, for she was wringing her hands with a low wail of despair. "Is there none to hear?" she lamented. "Are they all gone--all? Then is Aphrodite fallen indeed; deserted of the gods, her kinsmen; forgotten of mortals; braved and mocked by such as these! Woe! woe! for Olympus in ruins, and Time the dethroner of deities!"
Leander would hardly have been himself if he had forborne to take advantage of her discomfiture. "You see, mum," he said, "you're not everybody. You mustn't expect to have everything your own way down here.
We're in the nineteenth century nowadays, mum, and there's another religion come in since you were the fashion!"
"_Don't_, Leander!" said Matilda, in an undertone; "let her alone, the poor thing!"
She seemed to have quite forgotten that her fallen enemy had been dooming her to destruction the moment before; but there was something so tragic and moving in the sight of such despair that no true woman could be indifferent to it.
Either the taunt or the compassion, however, roused the goddess to a frenzy of passion. "Hold your peace!" she said fiercely, and strode down upon Leander until he beat an instinctive retreat. "Fallen as I am, I will not brook your mean vauntings or insolent pity! Shorn I may be of my ancient power, but something of my divinity clings to me still.
Vengeance is not wholly denied to me! Why should I not deal with you even as with those profane wretches who laid impious hands upon this my effigy? Why? why?"
Leander began to feel uncomfortable again. "If I've said anything you object to," he said hastily, "I'll apologise. I will--and so will Matilda--freely and full; in writing, if that will satisfy you!"
"Tremble not for your worthless bodies," she said; "had you been slain, as I purposed, you would but have escaped me, after all! Now a vengeance keener and more enduring shall be mine! In your gross blindness, you have dared to turn from divine Aphrodite to such a thing as this, and for your impiety you shall suffer! This is your doom, and so much at least I can still accomplish: Long as you both may live, strong as your love may endure, never again shall you see her alone, never more shall she be folded to your breast! For ever, I will stand a barrier between you: so shall your days consume away in the torturing desire for a felicity you may never attain!"
"It seems to me, Tillie," said Leander, looking round at her with hollow eyes, "that we may as well give up keeping company together, after that!"
Matilda had been weeping quietly. "Oh no, Leander, not that! Don't let us give each other up: we may--we may get used to it!"
"That is not all," said the revengeful goddess. "I understand but little of the ways of this degenerate age. But one thing I know: this very night, guards are on their way to search this abode for the image in which I have chosen to reveal myself; and, should they find that they are in search of, you will be dragged to some dungeon, and suffer deserved ignominy. It pleased me yesternight to shield you: to-night, be very sure that this marble form shall not escape their vigilance!"