"Julia is a girl," retorted Beatrice scornfully; in her turn scanning Mademoiselle very closely.
"Julia is an hermaphrodite," replied Mademoiselle, calmly. "We shall see."
"Never!" shouted Beatrice, reddening to her forehead.
"Or if you do not think her sufficiently powerful, I dare say we can find someone else. There's the gong. Julia, take in Madam Beatrice. Maud, give me your arm-run along, Agnes."
During this passage of arms, we had stood open-eyed and open-mouthed, wondering what the end of it would be. Even the sedate Maud had relinquished her book and I would have given a great deal to learn what was passing in her little head.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" I cried, for my excitement had occasioned a growth, and I got myself unmercifully bitten. I blushed painfully; in fact the pain was so severe that I thought I should faint.
Mademoiselle stopped, really astonished.
"It is that wedding ring of his, hers I mean," said Maud.
"Oh! I had forgotten. There, Beatrice, already," observed Mademoiselle. "I fear his remaining guineas are in serious jeopardy."
"Julia," said Beatrice, in desperate tones, as she took my arm, "if you don't take care, if you don't look out, I–I-I will tear the thing off you."
"I really could not help it, Beatrice," I expostulated.
"You must help it," she replied, giving my arm a vicious pinch.
So we marched off to the dining room.
The maids who waited at table looked at Beatrice and looked very significantly at each other. They were too well trained to give any other sign but I am sure I heard tittering behind the screen, and the one who handed me my soup gave me an intelligent although almost imperceptible nudge.
There was Beatrice next me, that great card in her way, unable to lift her spoon to her mouth without sprinkling it, to such an extent did she tremble, to such unusual nervousness was she reduced; and all because there was that word upon it.
During the meal Beatrice was unusually silent, almost sullen. What she was thinking of I puzzled myself very much to imagine. I was too much occupied with my own thoughts to take much part in the conversation always dominated by Beatrice's flaring announcement; for whatever subject was broached it seemed to be very quickly exhausted and attention returned to the placard.
I noticed that Beatrice drank much more than she ate. Glass after glass of red wine disappeared, until, at length, I observed Mademoiselle noticing the frequency with which it was emptied and refilled.
In these matters we were always left to our own devices. Mademoiselle never condescended to interfere in them, although she was ready enough to amuse herself with the consequences of any indiscretion.
It soon became plain to me that a spirit of perversity had seized Beatrice and that she was resolved to do justice to the character which had been ascribed to her. She had been made to declare herself a prostitute; she intended, evidently, to fill the part.
I knew the quantity of wine she was imbibing would make her utterly reckless. She drank and drank and her air and demeanour soon gave her the appearance of being so.
Before dinner was over she sat bolt upright resting against the back of the chair, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wild, her hair slightly disarranged. The naughtiness of the word seemed to have entered into her; and her legs were well apart, her eyelids drooped, and her gestures were very free.
The two other girls looked very much astonished, Mademoiselle looked amused, and I was frightened. I did not want Beatrice to make an exhibition of herself and she was evidently on the high-road to it.
In my solicitude, without exactly intending it, I involuntarily took an opportunity of pushing her glass from her, when I thought no one but herself would observe me, by way of giving her a gentle hint.
"You little ass!" she at once exclaimed, looking angrily at me, and quite loud. "Are you going to spill it over me again? Do you want me to slap your face for you as I did the other day? Leave my glass alone!"
I gave up in despair. I felt quite sad at the failure of my well-meant interference, and rather small at the notion of having my face slapped by one who was herself evidently more in need of control than able to exercise it.
"Julia," said Mademoiselle, "take care! Beatrice, I expect, will slap you somewhere else next time."
"That I shall! I shall put him across my lap, and warm his other end!"
And she pushed her chair back and appeared ready there and then to execute her threat.
The result was that I had recourse to the anodyne myself; for Mademoiselle, noticing Beatrice's condition, merely smiled and bit her lip-that dangerous smile which I knew betokened mischief.
In the drawing room Beatrice sank into a low, easy chair with a review on her lap, which, for some ten minutes or so, she attempted to read. Maud and Agnes went to the piano and Mademoiselle made me sit on a stool at her knee and talk to her. Beatrice soon began to nod and Mademoiselle to tire of inaction.
"Julia, why, with that alluring, appetizing spectacle before you," asked Mademoiselle, slyly, and in a voice audible to me alone, "do you not forget your petticoats? Look at your cousin," she continued, half turning and motioning with her hand towards her; "what an attractive attitude! What do not those pretty ankles promise! Observe her air of perfect abandon, her lap gaping, her arms outstretched. Why do you not fly to her?"
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."