[Pg 63] [Pg 63] [Pg 64] [Pg 64] FROM BAD TO WORSE IV. "And the shadow flits and fleets, And will not let me be, And I loathe the squares and streets!" Maud. "And the shadow flits and fleets, And will not let me be, And I loathe the squares and streets!" Maud. For some time after the statue had ceased to give signs of life, the hairdresser remained gaping, incapable of thought or action. At last he ventured to approach cautiously, and on touching the figure, found it perfectly cold and hard. The animating principle had plainly departed, and left the statue a stone. "She's gone," he said, "and left her statue behind her! Well, of all the goes——She's come out without her pedestal, too! To be sure, it would have been in her way, walking." Seating himself in his shabby old armchair, he tried to collect his scattered wits. He scarcely realised, even yet, what had happened; but, unless he had dreamed it all, he had been honoured by the marked attentions of a marble statue, instigated by a heathen goddess, who insisted that his affections were pledged to her. Perhaps there was a spice of flattery in such a situation—for it cannot fall to the lot of many hairdressers to be thus distinguished—but Leander was far too much alarmed to appreciate it. There had been suggestions[Pg 65] of menace in the statue's remarks which made him shudder when he recalled them, and he started violently once or twice when some wavering of the light gave a play of life
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