Caroline looked at Freda and laughed and Freda hung her head. The nobleman looked from one to the other in a puzzled manner.
He was at a loss to know what had occasioned the spat and determined to get at the bottom of it.
“Come, Caroline,” he said coaxingly, passing his hand around her upper arm and softly squeezing the cool flesh that palpitated beneath his clasp. “Come, Caroline, tell me what this is all about.” As he spoke his knee moved over to Caroline's and pressed it against her leg under cover of the table. Caroline returned the pressure with interest and, moving one of her hands over, laid it upon his thigh.
“Why, uncle,” she said, turning her charming eyes full upon him and squeezing his thigh under the table; “Freda and I were just talking about babies!” and she blushed and hung her head;
“About babies!” echoed the lord in a surprised tone. “What in the world do you mean?” he said, giving Caroline a warning glance and motioning toward Freda.
“Yes, about babies!” cried Freda emphatically, shaking her head to emphasize the statement. “Caroline says-” and here she hurried on breathlessly, “Caroline says-she says that one girl can have two or three babies at once! I know that that isn't true! Is it, uncle?” and she turned her eyes upon her uncle.
“Ha, ha!” evaded the lord, somewhat confounded by her direct glance and question. “Hm! Freda and Caroline, where on earth do you get all these ideas? Who has been talking about babies to you? And what do you know about babies? What does all this mean?” he asked, looking rather sternly from one to the other.
Caroline was not the least nonplussed but seemed rather amused at his searching glance, and Freda, adopting an air of wisdom that was extremely comical, opened her lips to speak, but changed her mind and closed them again.
“Come, Freda,” said the lord, moving his chair closer to her and looking at her coaxingly. “Come now, tell your uncle where you got all those ideas and everything.”
Freda shot a look at Caroline and, again looking at her uncle, said in a complacent tone: “I know all about babies and how they are born! A girl can only have one baby at a time, and I know that and I am sure.”
“God have mercy on us!” said his lordship. “Where did you find that out?” He was surprised at the precocity of his little niece, a mere child of fourteen.
“Why, at the convent, of course; all of us girls knew.”
“Do you know how they are made?” he inquired, winking at Caroline and nudging her with his knee.
“Oh, certainly,” said the complacent Freda. “I know exactly how they are made! I know all about it! And I know what you have there!” She pointed a small index finger at the front of the astonished peer's trousers. “And I also know what you do with it!”
Caroline blushed furiously at Freda's action in pointing at the spot that had played such an active part in stimulating and appeasing her own emotions in the last day or so. His lordship, however, was taken aback and hemmed and hawed, crossing and recrossing his legs nervously.
Freda, looking from one to another, took malicious delight in the sensation she had created. She rocked in her chair with laughter and continued to point her finger at that part of the lord's trousers that she judged covered his charger.
“Freda, my dear,” said his lordship, recovering somewhat from his surprise at her totally unexpected sally, “you know you shouldn't talk like that. Did you talk like that at school? Did the sisters know you talked like that?”
“We girls only talked about such things in the dormitories, when we were alone. The sisters would have punished us severely if they knew.”
“Why, Freda,” said Caroline, pressing her uncle's knee beneath the table, “you shouldn't talk that way before uncle. You know it isn't nice, and besides, uncle doesn't like it. Do you, uncle?” she asked, squeezing her uncle's knee and winking at him.
“Why, you and I talked about it last night,” said Freda, smiling with malice at Caroline's blushes. “And you didn't blush or act like you are acting now, either,” went on the mischievous child.
“Here, here, girls!” laughed the lord, seeing that the discussion was growing heated. “Remember, girls, don't tell tales out of school; keep your knowledge to yourself and no one will be the wiser. Come, girls, let us forget all about it.”
“Oh, but I don't want to forget about it,” pouted the adorable child. “I admit there are some things I shouldn't know about, but then there are lots of things I do know; the things which annoy me are those I have only a very hazy idea about. There's one thing I want to know: will you answer me a question, uncle?”
“Well, Miss Inquisitive, perhaps I might; let's hear what it is, first.”
“Well, uncle,” said Freda, squirming and twisting upon her seat, “one of the girls and I had an argument. Now, isn't it true when a girl has a baby she can only have one baby at a time, and if there are two, doesn't the doctor bring the other one? My girl friend said I was wrong and that a girl can not only have two, but perhaps three, or even more and that in rare cases they have been known to have four. Is that true?”
The lord looked quizzically at Freda and wondered if she were spoofing him, or if she were really in earnest about what she had asked.
This frank discussion of a subject usually taboo to children was rather disconcerting to his lordship and he cast a sidelong glance at Caroline to see what effect the discussion was having upon her. She was still stroking and pinching his thighs, her knee jammed tightly against his, under the table. Her hand was dangerously close to his organ, which had begun to rise in the course of this interesting discussion.
Caroline's face was crimson but she was evidently enjoying the discussion. Clearing his throat the man said, “Freda, I see that you are thoroughly determined to satisfy yourself on this point. Well, then, it is possible for a woman to give birth to twins-in fact, it is even possible for her to have three or four or perhaps even more.”
“But, uncle,” cried Freda, her eyes wide with amazement at this startling information, “how on earth can she get three or four babies at once?”
“Do you really know, Freda, how and why a girl gets a baby? How this little trick is performed?”
“Oh, yes,” replied the child. “I know how that is done! You just take that thing there in your trousers and stick it up in a girl's crack, the one between her legs, and push and push and a baby is made! Isn't that how it is done, uncle?” Her eyes clouded with a slight tinge of doubt as she gazed wonderingly into Lord Roxboro's face.
“Well, yes, after a fashion!” confessed the man, laughing. “You have the general idea, although you are somewhat at sea on some of the technical points.” Saying this, he laughed loudly and pressed his knee against Caroline's and gently rubbed it.
“Oh, I wish I knew all about it,” pouted Freda, her face causing them both to burst into peals of laughter. Freda looked from one to another as they laughed, her brow creased in a frown because of these two older persons ridiculing her apparent ignorance.
“Shall I tell her, Caroline?” queried the lord. “Shall I describe this little operation? You won't mind, will you?”
Caroline, in a quandary, her feelings mixed in her head, already in a lustful mood for the caresses and touchings of her uncle, scarcely knew how to answer. The conversation had aroused her lust and she was thoroughly enjoying it, although hesitating to concur in her younger sister's debauchery.
The lord, taking Caroline's silence for consent, drew his chair closer to the table, and as his hand caressed the form of Caroline through her dress, he draped the other arm over the back of Freda's chair and commenced:
“Well, child, your desire for knowledge on this usually taboo subject is rather startling, but most refreshing. At that, I am somewhat embarrassed because men don't usually inform little girls on the subject of impregnation and birth. Be warned, now, that in your search for knowledge you may bring down upon yourself revelations that will shock you and may disabuse your mind of many fanciful and romantic ideas that young girls are wont to have.”
“Oh, uncle, do go ahead and tell me all about it!” cried the interested Freda. “I am so curious to know about all those things.”
“Very well, then,” laughed her uncle, and forthwith launched into a vivid though technical description of those processes of nature that involve the reproduction of the humankind, couching his language in such terms as would be understandable to a child of her age. His lecture was listened to with avid interest by both the girls, Caroline herself listening with considerable concentration to his discussion which opened her eyes to many points on which she had heretofore been hazy or of which she had been totally ignorant.
