Beatrice's pose was indeed all that Mademoiselle described it. Her shapely legs were stretched out and well apart, her skirts had travelled half way up to her knees, disclosing her close-fitting, open-work stockings and slender ankles. Her knees had fallen wide apart, her arms rested, one upon each of the arms of the wide dormeuse; her breasts, rich, full, and snowy white, rose and fell evenly, and with them the card bearing that dreadful name; her eyes were closed; her lips slightly open; a soft smile was upon her face and her cheeks were touched with a soft glow apparently borrowed from the scarlet ribbon round her neck.
She did indeed, as Mademoiselle said, look most attractive, most alluring, most appetizing. Her figure was most voluptuous and full of promise.
"How can I forget my petticoats?" at length I asked my governess, discontinuing my contemplation of Beatrice, and refusing to enter upon the dreams her beauty inspired.
"How can you?" rejoined Mademoiselle ironically. "Did you not forget them with me, with your mamma, with Maud?" and Mademoiselle looked down into my face, with a soft smile. 295
I at once felt my suspicions aroused and myself set upon the alert. This was some deep ruse of Mademoiselle's to entangle me and to discover the true state of things between Beatrice and myself. I had learnt enough of feminine nature to be well aware that, where such preference existed, it was impossible to withhold it from the apprehension of any feminine being. They inhale its existence with the air they breathe. It is an epidemic, and I thought the smile signified a soupcon of jealousy on Mademoiselle's part.
I have never understood, this being the fact and no hallucination of mine, the necessity of a lover's formal declaration of his passion unless it be that he must lay himself open to a breach of promise.
No woman could find that on intuitive perception. I felt that my situation was an extremely ticklish one. The real object Mademoiselle had in view was to discover who really was the possessor of my heart. She herself merely owned my body.
How I congratulated myself upon the avoidance of the snare. I rested my head against Mademoiselle's knee, and, with a wisdom in advance of my years, murmured as I did so, Hamlet's words to Ophelia: "Here is metal more attractive."
"That is all very fine, Julia, but what good are your petticoats to me?"
Mademoiselle positively blushed as she asked this.
"You made me wear them."
"Don't you want to eat between meals, Julia?"
"It's not fair to turn the tables upon me like this, Mademoiselle. I thought I was only-a-a-youth then."
"And now you find you are both that and a girl too-as Lord Alfred Ridlington will show you."
"Lord Alfred Ridlington! I thought you said Lady-"
"Oh, yes! That was before your adventure with Maud-you have been unsexed since, and I have invoked his aid instead of hers."
"Oh, Mademoiselle!" And I hid my face in my charming governess' draperie.
"Why, Julia, what has become of your aplomb? It is so long since you have been birched-by me at any rate-that I really think I must have recourse to those dainty twigs to enliven your wits. There is a lady asleep. That ring, I suppose, forbids your enjoying the privilege claimed by those who possess but one half of your dual nature. Come, I will remove it. Is a young lady to announce herself 'prostitute' in your presence for nothing?"
Mademoiselle made me stand up, and slipping her hand underneath my skirts, she removed the horrid implement.
She did not stop at that. She caught hold of Mons. Priapus and his purse and by her dexterous manipulation of both very soon evoked various inarticulate exclamations from my lips and an irresistible impulse to move myself to and fro in her hand.
"Now go to Beatrice," she ordered presently, "and do what you like, what you wish, or as much as you can-and if you want encouragement, let me tell you that if you don't forget your petticoats you will have good reason to remember a certain oak bench and my birch!"
For a minute I felt quite at a loss what to do. How much did Mademoiselle know? How was I to undertake such a task as she suggested with the girl I was engaged to? Should I blurt out the truth at once and say it was impossible with my future wife. And then there were Maud and Agnes. They might fly at me, Maud especially. And Agnes. I recollected that day in the wood, as no doubt did she. "Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" Beatrice had asked her and had made me teach her the exact meaning of the query.
"Go!" said Mademoiselle, and she stood up, pointing to Beatrice, and gave me a slap on the back below the waist just as though I were an infant in frocks.
