But the old gentleman, after a manner he had, was sunk in a dreamy abstraction for the moment, in which he apparently lost the thread, as he resumed, "Whereupon Zeus, to punish her, gave her in wedlock to his deformed son, Hephæstus."
"She never mentioned him to _me_," thought Leander; "but I suppose she's a widow goddess by this time; I'm sure I _hope_ so."
"Whom," Mr. Freemoult was saying, "she deceived upon several occasions, notably in the case of ----" And here he launched into a scandalous chronicle, which determined Leander more than ever that Matilda must never know he had entertained a personage with such a past.
"Angered by her indiscretions, Zeus inspired her with love for a mortal man."
"Poor devil!" said Leander, involuntarily. "And what became of _him_, sir?"
"There were several thus distinguished; amongst others, Anchises, Adonis, and Cinyras. Of these, the first was struck by lightning; the second slain by a wild boar; and the third is reputed to have perished in a contest with Apollo."
"They don't seem to have had no luck, any of them," was Leander's depressed conclusion.
"Aphrodite, or Venus, as you choose to call her, took a prominent part in the Trojan war, the origin of which ten years' struggle may be traced to a certain golden apple."
"What an old rag-bag it is!" thought Leander. "I'm only wasting money on him. He's like a bran-pie at a fancy fair: what you get out of him is always the thing you didn't want."
"No, no, Mr. Freemoult," he said, with some impatience; "leave out about the war and the apple. It--it isn't either of them as I wanted to hear about."
"Then I have done," said the old man, curtly. "You've had considerably more than half a crown's worth, as it is."
"Look here, Mr. Freemoult," said the reckless hairdresser, "if you can't give me no better value, I don't mind laying out another sixpence in questions."
"Put your questions, then, by all means; and I'll give you your fair sixpenn'orth of answers. Now, then, I'm ready for you. What's your difficulty? Out with it."
"Why," said Leander, in no small confusion, "isn't there a story somewhere of a statue to Venus as some young man (a long time back it was, of course) was said to have put his ring on? and do you know the rights of it? I--I can't remember how it ended, myself."