"Certainly, Mr. Heely, I'll be very happy to have you," I replied.
Not until the door had closed behind him did I straighten out the folded piece of currency. Before my surprised sight was a five-pound note. I could hardly believe my eyes. Surely the good old man was out of his mind.
Straightway I rushed to find Madame Lafronde, laid the money before her and told her exactly what had transpired. She listened, smiling cynically, and pushed it back toward me.
"It's yours, girl. I've already gotten mine. Take it if you want to spend it.
If you don't I'll put it away for you."
"All of it?" I gasped.
"Certainly. Now just use your head, girl, and there'll be plenty more where that comes from. I'll get my share, and you may keep all you get from him. Wait a moment…" she called, as I turned to leave after thanking her, "here's some more advice for you. Don't brag about your good fortune to the other girls. Keep it to yourself. That old green-eyed monster is always lurking around, waiting for a chance to make trouble. Don't tell others things that will make them envy you."
How deeply these words struck home could only be guessed by one familiar with the circumstances of my past disgrace which had come about under the very conditions against which she was now warning me. Then and there I resolved to keep such good fortune as might come my way carefully hidden from envious eyes in the future.
As far as Mr. Heely was concerned, I ceased for the moment to bother my head with trying to fathom his purposes. If he was willing to pay me five pounds for dressing up like a doll and listening to him for a couple of hours I had no reason for complaint. Both Hester and Madame Lafronde were of the opinion that he would eventually want to do something besides talk, and in this they were right in a sense, but his conduct never degenerated into anything of an obnoxious nature.
Indeed, his ingeniousness was almost pathetic, and I often felt a twinge of conscience at the imposition which was being practiced upon him.
But I salved it with the thought that it would be more painful to him to be disillusioned than to be deceived. He derived a certain happiness from the strange association, and it doubtless filled some lonely space in his heart.
On his second visit he asked permission to sit on a cushion at my feet, a request which was of course granted, although for the moment I was mystified. A bit later the circumstance of the extremely short dress flashed over me and the suspicion which it engendered was verified when I observed an occasional covert glance being directed between my legs.
From this time on I was more careless as to how I sat, but even in this the kindly old gentleman had frustrated his own wishes by having provided me with panties which were so substantially made as to constitute an effectual barrier to the eye.
Slowly but progressively his familiarities advanced as the visits continued. The sitting on a cushion before my knees reminded me of Hester's predictions. It brought his face conveniently close, and I wondered… but nothing came of it. Later, he came to seating me on his lap. This provided me with an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity on another point which I had not been able to determine.
Masculine wearing apparel of present times is deficient in one particular. It is prone to reveal in a rather frank manner a certain physical condition to which men are at times subject, one which does not, on such occasions, escape the observant feminine eye. I had never noticed this condition in Mr. Heely, a circumstance which intrigued my curiosity.
Furthermore, his continued liberality was beginning to inspire me with a desire to show my gratitude in some form. It stood to reason there was something he wanted, some inner wish which perhaps he himself had not fully defined, or else was too timid and reticent to express.
And so, partly to satisfy my own curiosity, and partly actuated by a really unselfish wish to give him something in return for his generosity, I decided to encourage him a little more actively, even though this was contrary to Madame Lafronde's counsel.
It was very difficult to convince myself that he was taking this farcical "make-believe-lady" comedy seriously. How could he possibly think I was chaste and innocent, living as I was in a house of prostitution and associating with harlots? It hardly seemed possible that a man of his age and experience could be so credulous.
Surely he was, like myself, just pretending, and finding in the pretence some peculiar psychic compensation beyond my comprehension.
Surely he must know in his heart that it was all sham and fraud.
I had observed that his gaze was frequently on my legs. There are men to whom the feminine leg is almost a fetish. Also, I had not forgotten the floor-sitting inclinations. The next time he came after I had made my resolution I sat on his lap, and as he talked I worked and fumbled through the texture of my dress at my garter which I had purposely tightened until it compressed my leg unduly.
"Mr. Heely," I murmured plaintively, "I wonder if you could fix my garter for me. The buckle is so stiff I can't loosen it and the garter is almost cutting my leg in two." So saying, I drew my skirt up in the most casual manner, exposing the garter, the top of my hose and a tiny bit of flesh above. "Look," I continued, "it's making a regular ring around my leg!" I pulled the garter toward my knee and turned down the upper part of my hose. There was a purple indentation around the leg.
Mr. Heely was instantly all compassion.
"My dear little girl," he exclaimed, "why didn't you speak of it before, Why, this thing is so tight it's cutting off the blood circulation. We must open the buckle and lengthen the elastic."
As he spoke, his fingers tenderly caressed the puckered flesh. He slipped the garter down over my knee and off my leg. It took him but a moment to pry open the buckle and lengthen the band, whereupon he replaced the garter and smoothed my hose back into place.
"How about the other one? Is it tight? Perhaps we'd better fix it, too."
"I wish you would," I replied. "It hurts my fingers to open those buckles."
My other leg was laid bare above the knee and the second garter received his attention. He spent several minutes rubbing the flesh to restore the impeded circulation, adjusted the garter and put my dress down over my knees.
"You're so kind to me, Mr. Heely, I fear I shall never be able to repay you."
"Why, Jessie, dear," he answered, obviously pleased, "just being near you is quite payment enough. I have lived a very lonely life, my dear, and these are happy hours for me. I only wish they were half as pleasant for you as they are for me."
What could I do with a man so ingenious and innocent that he refused to rise to such bait? It was not sufficient that I sit on his lap and let him play with my garters. Either he was the world's prize simpleton or he didn't, in truth, want anything from me. I decided to make a bolder effort.
"Indeed they are pleasant for me, Mr. Heely! I feel so comfortable with you. I like to sit on your lap this way. Sometimes… sometimes, though, I get feelings when I'm sitting on your lap that I don't understand myself…"
I felt him start slightly.
"What kind of feelings, my dear?"
"Oh, I don't know… they're hard to describe… kind of trembly, warm feelings that go all through me. Like just now, when you were rubbing my leg…"
"Are they pleasant feelings, dear?" he asked huskily.
"Oh, yes! Sometimes I think they are naughty feelings, and then again I think they can't be bad when they're so nice. Do you think they are bad feelings, Mr. Heely?" I continued, watching him covertly for his reactions.
"My dear child," he replied finally, taking one of my hands between his and squeezing it, "I hardly know how to answer you. Madame Lafronde told me, if I remember correctly, that you are fifteen years old. At that age the promptings of Nature are to be accepted as an entirely normal manifestation of a healthy body, I would imagine. I have, I must confess, often doubted the prudence of Madame Lafronde's course in bringing you into surroundings and influences which I fear will tend to corrupt your thoughts. I wish…" he continued sadly, "that it were possible for me to remove you from this questionable atmosphere, but if I were to suggest such a thing my motives would undoubtedly be questioned. So all I can do, my dear, is to offer you such counsel and advice as my more mature years may qualify me to give. I have never had any daughters of my own, and though I was once married, my wife was taken from me while we were both quite young. So now, in my old age, I have no one to hold on my knee but little Jessie."