"Oh, Mademoiselle, I–I-I swallowed in the first time, and the second, but the third-"
"You spat it out! And yet you have the impudence to profess you love me," retorted Mademoiselle indignantly. "Very well, you shall swallow something not half as nice in my dressing room after tea, for punishment!"
I changed colour, but dared not reply.
Elise then entered with the tea things, and looked at me very curiously. As she went out, looking straight at me, she ominously observed: "Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that!"
Mademoiselle laughed.
"If it were only!" I ejaculated, much disturbed.
"That is the whole point of it. It will not be I," was all she replied.
Mademoiselle's appetite astonished me, and I thought she gratified it most immorally. She devoured crumpets and muffins, and plum-cake, and bonbons, and cups of delicious fragrant tea. She made me sit near her and follow her example. Her manner towards me was most winning and affectionate, with a strong spice of tantalising coquetry. She even indulged in some little endearments of a peculiarly alluring character. For instance as she sat talking to me she rested her elbow on my lap quite casually, but would not notice the emotions it excited, or the movements and looks it evoked.
CHAPTER 9
Tea over, Mademoiselle glanced at the clock. As I arose I shook down my petticoats with contempt and some indignation of a keener mind than I had yet felt. Mademoiselle complacently noticed the action but did not attempt to give me any consolation.
"It is just an hour and a half to dinner and you will now come with me to my dressing room, Julia."
What a strange thrill the name Julia gave me! She led me rather crestfallen to her dressing room, warm, cosy, and bright. She bade me take off her shoes and stockings, and, having permitted me to kiss her feet, I put them into dainty fur-lined slippers. Then she took off her dress, and I saw her admirable bust and glorious arms, but she would not allow me to kiss them although I prayed her to let me do so. Instead I had, in my turn, to divest myself of every single article of clothing and to lie flat on my back in a long, narrow, shallow bath, in which she fastened me by means of a strap over my breast which prevented my rising. The bath was slightly tilted up at the foot.
She then took off a slipper and struck what I was so anxious to put into her seven or eight times, hurting me greatly, observing that it deserved punishment and no further kind treatment.
Her altered mood caused me great astonishment, but, as I have remarked, the gymnastics through which a woman's caprices can put one's soul are a principal portion of education received by any one subjected to her sway.
When she had amused herself in this manner, she said she would teach me not to spit out the choicest possible marks of a lady's feelings!
I felt very much frightened. Ignorance of my fate increased my fears.
She repeated that as I had not swallowed what I had wooed from her in response to my own efforts, I should now have to swallow something less nice which she would be glad to get rid of.
This terrified me much more. The idea struck me in an instant what it was possible she might mean. No; she could not mean-she would not dare-she would not so treat me! I should have started up but for the restraining strap. As it was, I did start as much as it would allow me, for the terrible idea gave me a strong shock.
I was not reassured by what took place next.
She stood across me in the bath ravishing me with a sight of her pretty figure overhead, her legs bared to her frilled drawers; and coquettishly lifting up her petticoats with both hands to her middle, she carefully drew the drawers well apart, disclosing to my full view what I had been kissing that afternoon, with entrancing glimpses of lovely pink flesh.
Great Heavens! There can be no doubt what she intends to do to me! I shall die of disgust!
"Mademoiselle," I cried, "don't! Don't. I will swallow what you like; but don't do that."
She looked at me with an amused and satisfied smile.
"Why should I not? It would serve you right!"
"I dare say!" I exclaimed. "But I am very sorry. I beg your pardon!"
"And did you really think I would?" she exclaimed with a merry laugh and blush. "What a fright I have given you! Well, not this time," she continued,* adding, with an uplifted finger and a sparkle in her eyes: "But beware, in future. On this occasion I shall commute your sentence to half a tumbler full of Eau Amere de Pesth, commonly called "Aesculap." You must have some punishment; and it will serve my purpose better than the tumblers of water which the Empress Catherine compelled her refractory courtiers to swallow as penance. In the meantime though, I must really give you a douche, you saucy boy." And, lifting a large can of tepid water, she drenched me with it. I sputtered and blew, but the torrent poured on. The stream fell full and impetuously upon my lips, my nostrils, my eyes, and my whole face-blinding and suffocating me — running into my mouth and down my throat, almost choking me, to Mademoiselle's delight. Would the can never be empty? Would she not tilt it up and be done with it? Over my chest, over what she had been playing with, over my legs, the now attenuated stream trickled, my hair gradually getting soaked through and through, and I drowned in the water; the bath being small and tilted at its end submerging me to my ears and chin.
At last the stream ended, and she then gave me the drops that had run past the mouth of the can. I turned my head away only to become more drenched and to get my mouth fuller. There were five inches of the fluid about my head; it came quite up to my lips and if I moved got between them and went, perforce, down my throat.
"There!" said Mademoiselle, exultingly, having at length exhausted the reservoir. "Now, Master Julian, just contemplate what that water might have been! Just think what you might have been lying in-what you might have been made to swallow. Take care. Another time I may not let you off. Think of all this; and then I do not believe you will play me that trick again."
*The late Lord- was actually placed in this jeopardy by a German mistress in Fulham who was not so merciful as Mademoiselle.
I was disposed to agree entirely with her, but dared not venture upon a word, not feeling particularly thirsty at the moment. On a subsequent occasion I ran an even narrower risk of the same punishment.
This time the half-tumbler of Aesculap, bitter and a little nauseous, which she made me drink, willy-nilly, effectually confirmed my good resolution. I felt angry, in fact, furious at this drenching. It was so ignominious; but I confess that the fear that she would carry out her threat, together with the idea that the water about me might have been of a different kind, and if I offended again, would be, gave me a strange delight.
With a laugh at my discomfiture and at my look (I felt my eyes gleaming), Mademoiselle left the room. Returning in two or three minutes, she calmly sat down before a large glass to do her hair at great leisure. The least she could have done would have been to release me; but that, she showed not the slightest intention of doing as yet. I had to lie in that deluge quite half an hour, while she bade me reflect what a pickle it might have been, and unconcernedly let down and combed her magnificent hair.
When, at last, I was released, I felt well soused.
Certainly the milk of Venus was pleasanter to swallow than that nasty water, yet they both might have come from the same place, and from Mademoiselle. I think, on the whole, that I really loved her the more for the fright I had originally experienced: a strange overpowering longing to devour her; to be intimately united with and yet subject to her; to nourish myself with her being; a craving which I endeavoured to slake with kisses; and which was subsequently much more effectually gratified by my absorption of her raw clinging flesh, expressing in a humid language of its own the fleeting vanishing emotions of her soul.