She kept turning me round, searching out white spots on my body, and when she found one, she slashed it until it matched the rest of me.
'There you are dear. A scarlet corsage!' she said, kissing me contemptuously. Phoebe was rung for, and she carried me, half-naked and sobbing bitterly, upstairs and put me to bed.
I remained in bed ten days, thinking-thinking very hard. On the eleventh day, I was able to bear corsets once more around my breasts. I was allowed to get up. It was evening, after dinner. I was dressed in the most wonderful costume of palest lavender satin: decollete corsage, a sash with long gold-fringed streamers down to the heels of my shoes, and a great bow at my back, short satin knickers with a ruby buckle in front, and diamond buckles at the thighs, the frills of my drawers- which also were short and did not hide my knees-fluttering, open-worked silk stockings and satin slippers that were covered with diamonds and had diamond bows besides and five and a half inch heels, and, of course, long white kid gloves.
I was led to Helen. She kissed me affectionately.
'Helen, please don't keep me dressed like this!'
'But I love you like this,' she said leading me to a long mirror. 'Stand with your satin slippers together. You look exquisite, dear, with your curls swinging down to your waist and your tall slender figure encased in lavender satin.'
'But I can't go out dressed like this.'
'This is an evening dress, darling. You can go out in your velvet knickers and your little buttoned patent leather boots.'
'But everybody will jeer at me.'
'I think that you will find that they will make love to you, dear,' Helen answered with a smile.
'But when am I to be allowed to wear trousers again?'
'Never,' said Helen decidedly. She sat down. I stared at her aghast.
'Never?'
'Of course not. How can you wear trousers with those hips and that waist and that pretty posterior?'
'But it's my corset that intensifies the girlish look of them,' I said blushing deeply.
'No doubt, but you can never get rid of your corset darling. Remember that you have a girl's round breasts. You must have a support for them, otherwise your figure would soon be ruined. It would be ridiculous to let you wear trousers. You look pretty now. You would only look silly and rather improper in trousers.'
I got red with confusion.
'Yes,' Helen went on, 'I am responsible for your good name. That can never be.'
I saw that it was in vain to bend her. I recognized the truth in her observations. She and Miss. Priscilla had gotten their revenge. I had inherited my father's fortune and in return they had irrevocably made me a girl.
I fell on my knees before her, as she had prophesied that I would.
'Then Helen I have been thinking. Let Dennis Beryl disappear altogether.'
I saw a flash of triumph in her eyes.
'Let him die! You will become mistress of the estate. Let Denise return to you. I am never to marry. I am never to wear trousers. I want to be your pretty slave. Let me have the life of a girl.'
Helen kissed me ardently. She had been bringing me to this.
'I will make you very happy, Denise,' she said. 'I will keep you beautifully dressed. You shall have Violet, your friends, all the fine enjoyments.'
So it was settled. With Guy Repton's help, my enormous fortune was easily arranged. I was sent down dressed as a girl under Miss. Priscilla's charge to a little lonely house by the sea. Helen announced that Dennis had gone to a German university to complete his education. A student dying of consumption with a very poor family was bribed (as were his parents) to assume my name. He died and was cremated as Dennis Evelyn Beryl. His tombstone is in a little churchyard in Bonn.
Helen went to Germany for the funeral. No one raised any difficulties or suspected fraud. Guy Repton was well paid. All over my estate, the tenants were delighted that Helen was now the real owner and mistress. On her return, she announced that she was going to make a home for Denise Beryl out of memory for poor Dennis. Denise had made herself popular. Denise was welcomed. I came back as a girl. Violet was delighted. What of me? Let one final scene be the answer.
Two years later a magnificent ball is held at a great house at the height of the London season. A conservatory is screened with palms and dimly lit. Through the door comes the languorous music of a waltz. Inside the conservatory two armchairs sit close together. In one sits a girl dressed in a lovely rich frock of white velvet, pink roses in her corsage and in her hair, jewels on her white neck and her gloved wrists. Her red lips are smiling, her bright eyes sparkling, her fair face radiant with pleasure. At her side, bending toward her, is a young handsome man with a forceful look upon his face. It was the young man who made the brilliant speech in Hampshire and become a cabinet minister. The young man speaks. 'Denise, I must call you Denise. You are adorable from your curls to the tips of your satin slippers.'
Denise laughs, blushes and coquettishly places together the little white shining high-heeled shoes in his view.
'My heart is beneath them,' says the young man. 'How shall I prove it?'
Denise turns her sparkling eyes to her companion.
'Kiss them on your knees,' she says. They think they are alone. The young man drops on his knees and reverently kisses the small feet. Denise springs up with a laugh.
'I must go. I have a partner for this dance.'
'You will give me your hand?' the young man implores.
'You ask too much,' says Denise with a smile, 'I have already given you my feet.'
She runs lightly to the ballroom. She has lost her position, her fortune, her authority as a man, but she has gained, as a girl, a power that few men ever enjoy.
