'One minute, dear,' she murmured, softly, 'I want it as badly as you, but-I hate to say it-I make my living out of that little place you're after. Just a hundred dollars and you shall have the fuck of your lifetime.'
Mr. Silverwood did not hesitate a moment.
'Done,' he gurgled, 'open your legs.'
'Take your trousers off then, I hate being scratched by buttons.'
Mr. Silverwood hastened to obey, slipped off his breeches, and exposed a really remarkable member, as stiff as a ramrod and pulsating with lust.
Little Miss Jepps lay back and opened her legs wide, raising her knees.
'Give me the pillow for my head,' she said, and, taking it from him, rested her lovely head on it.
Mr. Silverwood wasted no time. Like a duellist who meant killing his man, he rammed his steel-stiff ramrod into the soft and slippery Abode of Love.
It was all too short: she was hot, too, and when she got him with a double nip which nearly broke his shaft in two, Mr. Silverwood let fly a stream which would have done credit to a fountain in his own ornamental garden on Lakeside.
Mr. Silverwood uncoupled with a sigh and a last passionate kiss, in which he nearly choked the little darling.
'Gee, but that was bully,' said the millionaire as he rose, panting.
'You know why kisses are like ham sandwiches?' queried the girl.
'No.'
'Because they're both the better for a bit of tongue-see.'
'Guess you're a bright bit all through,' said Mr. Silverwood.
'Well, I've been around some-I'm glad you liked it-I've had more hundreds that I can count, but you didn't find it too large, did you?'
'It was just a dream.'
'Do you know the story of the man who married a three times widow?'
'No, not that I know.'
His friend met him the morning after his first, and asked him how he liked it.
'“Alan,” he said, “it was like opening a window and fucking the wide, wide world!”'
Mr. Silverwood chuckled again. 'Know any more?' he said.
'Lots. I always make it a point to remember 'em. It pleases men. I'm a whore, I admit, but I'm nothing if not thorough. Mine is one of the oldest professions in the world, and I'm not ashamed of it. Here's another on the same subject.
'A man married a widow who had had fourteen children. His pal met him and queried solicitously.
'“I hope old man, you haven't put your foot in it!”
'“No: but I could!”'
Mr. Silverwood took a wad of dollar bills from his pocket, and settled his little account.
That's the best spent hundred dollars I ever remember, and it's yours again, little lady, whenever you've any spare time, but I guess you're like to be popular this trip.'
'Oh, I can manage a deal of fucking. I'll tell you some more tales next time. Now run along.'
Miss Jepps, left alone, filled a basin from the seawater tap, and syringed (and I may tell you, gentle, and otherwise, readers, that a salt-water douche is a dead snip preventative).
With a few dexterous touches, she put up her shiny auburn locks, fixed a fillet ribbon round her white forehead, with a single small diamond and ruby star in its midst, slightly rouged her cheeks, drew a red salve stick across her little Cupid's bow of a mouth, and then turned to her dressing.
Simple, but with Paquin stamped all over it, was Miss Jepps's dinner gown. Dead black, a fine contrast to the almost scarlet hair, tiny in the waist, and Miss Jepps went easily into a seventeen corset, and very, very decoletee indeed. In fact the little crimson buttons which were the crowning glory of her snowy breasts narrowly escaped peeping over the rim of her corsage. She wore a spidery net over the decolletage, which, if anything, exaggerated its daring.
With a final twist of the skirt, and a little wriggle of the rounded shoulders she smiled approval of herself in the long cheval glass.
Mr. Silverwood walked very quickly to the smoking-room, crossed straight to the bar, and drank three cocktails very quickly. Lord Reggie Cameron, a decadent Scots chieftain, who was also attending to his ante-prandial digestion, stared in amazement.
'What, what, laddie,' he said-he always began his sentences like that-'you seem in need of spiritual comfort!'
'So would you, lord, if you'd had my little afternoon.'
'So?'
'Yes-you'll see her at dinner-she's the very last thing that ever came down the Pike.'
Lord Reggie looked inquisitive.
'Introduce me?' he queried.
'Your cheque book, I guess, will be your best introduction.'
'Das vos right,' interrupted Herr Kunst, a massive German, 'it vos alvays der payments dat mit dese most loveliness womens der affectionations make, ain't it?'
'Right oh,' chipped in Billy Neal, the well-known English actor, 'whenever I stay at a country house, I always tell my man to put my cheque book in my pyjama pocket. It does help the sacrifice to Venus.'
'It vos make it less troublessness, ain't it,' assented Herr Kunst, 'but der fucking in dese days of der jewellery der most expensive der great costliness vos, ain't it?'
'Oh, I don't know so much about that,' said a good-looking young man who was drinking as if he wanted to put paid to the ship's whisky stock before the Irish coast hove in sight; 'just listen to this story of a pal of mine.
' I'm naturally a shy chap, you know, and I'll be damned if ever I can find anything to talk about at balls and parties and things. But my pal isn't, and I just asked him how he managed about small talk.
'“Oh,” he said, “when I'm first left alone with a girl, I just say to her, casual like, y'know-“Are you fond of fucking?”
'“Good God, man,” I said to the bounder, “surely you get your ears boxed a lot, and get kicked out of a lot of houses?”
'“Well, I do, I admit,” he answered, “but I get a hell of a lot of fucking.”'
The raconteur smiled appreciation, and hastily ordered drinks for the assembled party on credit-his elder brother, the heir, was meeting him at Southampton.
The party then broke up to dress for dinner, all save Herr Kunst, who was so rich that he was excused the conventionalities and whose excuse of a 'weak chest' was allowed to keep him in morning dress.
Herr Kunst sat gloomily by the fire, contemplating the ship's dog, which lay placidly asleep, and pondering over the late conversation.
Though riche a millions- made out of a successful railway rig-he was not generous, and, though he loved the good things of life, he equally disliked paying for them. He stared long at the dog.
'Ach,' he muttered suddenly, you: you vos remind me of the dog of mein neighbour Schmidt in Chicago.
'Mein neighbour Schmidt und meinself, ve 'ad to der bierhalle been, und after ve make a backslidings into a bad house, und, vot mit der vucking mit der frauleins, und der drinkings mit, ve vos some very much late kom 'ome.
'Schmidt-he vos look at his dog.
'“You,” he say, “you vos only a dog, but I vish I vos you. Tonight now, it vos time to go to bed. You, you vos turn over tree times, you vos stretch yourself, and you vos asleep. Me: I haf to piss in der fire so dat it more safeness vos, I haf to undress meinself, und ven I reach mein room der vife she vos scold because I so lateness vos. Der baby vos squeal und I half to valk mit 'im round der house until by der time it vos time to go to bed it vos time to get up.
'“ I haf to make der fire, to cook der breakfast, to dress meinself. You, you stretch tree times und you vos up. I give you your breakfast, und I haf to vork all day.
'“You, you play all day, and you ven you die, you vos dead; ven I die, I have to go to Helclass="underline" ain't it?” '
Herr Kunst spat venomously into the fire, and the dinner gong sounded.
They were a mixed lot in the first class on the Mesopotamia. Silverwood, Kunst, Miss Jepps and Lord Reggie Cameron we have already met. In addition there were the usual gang of rich Americans crossing to Europe for the early season, a number of business men of no particular interest, and Lady Felicia Tittle.