mind you behave yourself tonight. I think I have smoothed things for you.'
I returned to my dressing room to get ready for dinner and to prepare to meet my lover again; not without certain qualms, which Mademoiselle had taken effectual means to quell.
I felt that, willy-nilly, I must give myself up to him; and the consequence of her lesson was that I would not scruple further about the matter. Anything was preferable to being punished by her with that candle.
CHAPTER 4
We assembled in the drawing room. I in a very low dress, which Elise had helped me to do. I had on one of my strictest corsets, laced 'severely,' and I was chiefly occupied with the hope that I should survive.
My shoes were cut low, my legs were encased in openwork stockings, and the heels of the shoes I wore were fearfully high.
I had roses in my hair, and a cluster of them at my breast. I was perfumed with eau de Cologne, my face was delicately rouged, and I endeavoured to comport myself like a young married woman and to meet my lover or husband for the once with aplomb.
He looked very well indeed, and I believe the girls envied me. Beatrice's face was a study; but just as I could not rid myself of the notion that I myself was acting, so an unholy and tantalising fancy kept bothering me that Lord Alfred Ridlington was doing the same.
Many symptoms appeared to me to confirm my suspicions. Notwithstanding all Mademoiselle's assertions and doings, I believed myself fundamentally masculine, and I began to think Lord Alfred Ridlington feminine.
However, the evening passed pretty much like that famous one which I spent for the first time in girl's dress when he had taken me to the conservatory, and my sensations were the same.
Lord Alfred took me into dinner and sat next to me. During it, and afterwards, he devoted himself to me, full of those little attentions so delightful to a girl. And upon this occasion we were quite en famille, there were no other men or guests.
At length, after a merry and exciting evening, I determined to exercise my prerogative and retire.
I kissed Mademoiselle as usual; and then, with a blush, I bade my lover good night. Prompted by some mischievous spirit, I said, as I did so: 'You will not stay long in the smoking room, Alfred-you will come soon, won't you?' And I looked affectionately into his eyes. He gazed at me in return, first at my face and then at my gown and pretty ankles, which were disclosed by the way in which I had been schooled to hold up my dress when moving.
'Yes, dear,' he replied, 'at once if you like.'
'Oh, no!' I answered, as a hot blush rose to my cheeks. 'Give me time to get into bed.' And I smiled at him.
As I left the room Beatrice also got up and wishing Mademoiselle good night, followed me.
She overtook me on the staircase.
'Julian, you wretch!' she exclaimed, with great disdain. 'How can you behave like this? Don't you know you are engaged to me? Don't you know you are a boy, not a girl, and Lord Alfred-Lord Alfred indeed! Don't you know what he is!'
I very nearly dropped my candle.
'Don't you know?' continued Beatrice, with infinite scorn. 'You are no more a girl than I am a boy, and he is no more a man than you are a girl!'
'No!' I at length answered, summoning up all the courage I possessed; and turning round, I looked her full and defiantly in the face. 'I do not.'
Beatrice flushed angrily.
'Go along to your room-do not let us have a scene here. Go to your room, and I will follow you.'
Mercy upon us! I wished to be alone. Lord Alfred Ridlington, then Mademoiselle and her candle, now Beatrice and after her goodness alone knows what. However, I too felt we could not have a row there and therefore slowly ascended the stairs to my room.
'You think, I suppose,' continued Beatrice, 'that because you wear all this borrowed plumage you are a girl.'
And she set about enumerating it.
'Because you have girl's shoes on, and a lady's stockings right up your legs, and drawers, and a chemise, and corset, and petticoats, you imagine that makes you a girl.'
Beatrice's flush had left her by the time we reached the bedroom and she had grown stern and pale while with her flaming eyes she glared upon me.
She so frightened me that I could only ejaculate: 'Oh, Beatrice!'
'Oh, Julian!' she retorted, setting down her candle. Then she placed her arms and hands on my shoulders and forced me down on to the sofa.
There was no room for doubting her sex. A girl, a very lovely girl, and now a very angry girl. I trembled.
She looked at me and then without another word slapped my face.
'Don't you know the difference between a boy and a girl yet? Have you not been often enough underneath my petticoats, and my hand often enough under yours? How can you be a girl with this thing?' And so saying she slipped her hand up my legs which fell apart instantly.
I gasped and shuddered under the violence of the assault.
'It is not my doing; how can I help myself?' I enquired coldly.
'Easily; you positively take a delight in belting your sex which is no longer yours to give away. Do you think I have not noticed all your tomfoolery with 'Lord' Alfred? I won't let you sleep with her.'
'With her?'
'Yes, her.'
'My goodness!' I observed. If he was she, the idea of sleeping with her was not, I must confess, altogether objectionable.
Beatrice saw she had made a blunder and I suppose this prompted the series of severe pinches she then gave me, the effect of which was to cause me to fall helplessly back upon the couch and to scatter all my ideas to the winds. She soon worked me into a condition of extreme excitement.
'There,' she said, 'how can you imagine yourself a girl now? Do you not long for me?'
'Yes,' I replied, and in truth I did.
'Then lie flat down-on your back.'
She whisked her skirts across my face and mine up to my middle. I very soon felt my mistress upon me.
'Now prove to me that you are a boy and I will satisfy you as to what I am.'
Of course it had to be as she wished and it was so.
'Now get up,' removing her exquisite leg from across me, 'now get up, and undress and get into bed and imagine yourself a girl again if you dare. And try to be honest tomorrow!'
She took up her candle to go and I offered to kiss her, receiving another sounding and stinging slap upon my cheek in return.
'Very well!' I exclaimed, testily.
'Very well!' retorted Beatrice, at once stopping. 'What do you mean? How dare you address me in such a tone?'
I looked at her but said nothing; I felt too indignant.
'Very well; just you wait one minute.' Then she returned after a moment's absence with Mademoiselle's riding-whip. 'Lie across the bed-on your face.'
And notwithstanding my struggles, she forced me down, turned up my petticoats, held me with one arm, and inflicted some half dozen vicious stripes across my legs, over my drawers-a very poor protection, for the whip bit through them, and besides, their construction left an ample portion of my frame bare.
'Now,' she said, recovering her breath, 'it is very well!'
