'I'll keep it,' I protested.
She accepted smiling: 'Go away, sir, and come back in ten minutes.'
When I returned I had only pyjamas on, and as I went hastily to the bed I was conscious of absolute reverence: if only the dreadful doubt had not been there, it would have been adoration. As I pushed back the clothes I found she had kept her chemise on. I lifted it up and pushed it round her neck to enjoy the sight of the most beautiful body I had ever seen. But adoring plastic beauty as I do, I could only give a glance to her perfections; the next moment I had touched her sex and soon I was at work: in a minute or two I had come but went on with the slow movement till she could not but respond, and then in spite of her ever-growing excitement, as I continued she showed surprise.
'Haven't you finished?' I shook my head and kissed her, tonguing her mouth and revelling in the superb body that gave itself to my every movement.
Suddenly her whole frame was shaken by a sort of convulsion; as if against her will, she put her legs about me and hugged me to her. 'Stop, please!' she gasped, and I stopped; but when I would begin again, she repeated, 'Please,' and I withdrew, still holding her in my arms.
A moment later, remembering her fear, I got out of bed and showed her in the next room the bidet and syringe. She went in at once, but as she passed me I lifted the chemise and had more than a glimpse of the most perfect hips and legs. She smiled indulgently and turning, kissed me and passed into the dressing-room.
I felt certain now that she had given herself in that d… d year and a half to someone else. She was not a virgin, nor at her first embrace, but she had not been used much. Why? Had she been enceinte and got rid of the coming child? That would explain her lips, poor dear girl. If she would trust me and tell me, I would marry her; if not- When she returned she was all cold; I lifted her into bed, and after taking off her chemise covered her till she got warm, and then bit by bit studied her figure. It was not perfect, but the faults were all merits in my eyes. Her neck was a trifle too short, but her breasts were as small as a girl's of thirteen; her hips were perfect with almost flat belly, long legs and the tiniest, best-kept sex in the world. It was always perfectly clean and sweet. I have never seen one more perfect. The clitoris was just a little mound and the inner lips were glowing crimson. I began to tongue the sensitive spot, and at once she began to move spasmodically. As I touched just below the clitoris, she squirmed violently:
'What are you doing?' she cried, trying to lift my head.
'Wait and see,' I replied, 'it's even more intense there, the sensation, isn't it?'
She nodded breathlessly, and I went on; in a little while she gave herself altogether to my lips and soon began to move convulsively and then: 'Oh, Frank, oh! It's too much. I can't stand it, oh, oh, oh!' — she tried to draw away: as I persisted, she said, 'I shall scream. I can't stand it- please stop,' and as I lifted my head I saw that her love-juice had come down all over her sex. I touched the little clitoris again with my lips but she lifted my head up for a kiss and putting her arms about me strained me to her madly. 'Oh you dear, dear, dear! I want you in me, your-, please.'
Of course I did as she requested and went on working till her eyes turned up and she grew so pale-I stopped. When she got her breath again-'I would not have believed,' she said after a while, 'that one could feel so intensely.
You took my breath and then my heart was in my throat, choking me-'
Those words were my reward. I had learned the way to her supreme moment.
How we dressed I don't know, but passing through the dining-room I found myself desperately hungry and Laura confessed to the same appetite, and once more we set to on the food.
Why was Laura to me different from any other woman? She did not give me as much pleasure as Topsy; indeed, already in my life there had been at least two superior to her in the lists of love, and a couple also who had flattered me more cunningly and given me proofs of a more passionate affection. Her queenly personality, the sheer brains in her, may have accounted for part of the charm. She certainly found memorable words: this first day as we were leaving the bedroom, she stopped, and putting her hands on my shoulders she said, 'Non ti scordare di me' (Don't forget me), and then, putting her arms round my neck, 'We were one, weren't we?' And she kissed me with clinging lips.
And if it wasn't a word that ravished me, it was a gesture of sacred boldness.
As she gradually came to understand how her figure delighted me, she cast off shame and showed me that the Swedish exercises she practiced day after day had given her lovely body the most astonishing flexibility. She could stand with her back to a wall and, leaning back, could kiss the wall with her head almost on a level with her hips, her backbone as flexible as a bow. To me she was the most fascinating mistress and companion with a thousand different appeals. To see her in her triumphant nakedness strike an attitude and recite three or four lines, and then take the ultra-modest pose of the Florentine Venus and cover her lovely sex with her hand was a revelation in mischievous coquetry.
But now and then she complained of pains in the lower body, and I became certain that her womb had been inflamed by a wilful miscarriage: she had given herself to my American rival. If she had only been frank and told me the whole truth, I'd have forgiven her everything and the last barrier between us would have fallen, but it was not to be. She was still doubtful, perhaps of my success in life, doubtful whether I would go from victory to victory. In the humility of love I wanted to show her the reasons of my success, told her how I had learnt from newsboys, foolishly forgetting that to women ignorant of life, results alone matter: the outward and visible sign is everything to them. It took years for her to learn that I was able to win in life wherever I wished, on the stock exchange even more easily than in journalism. And her mother was always against me, as I learned later. 'He can talk, but so can other people,' she would say with a side glance at the Irish husband, whose talking was always unsuccessful. But though our immediate surroundings were unfavourable and doubtful, when we were together Laura and I lived golden hours; and now, when I think of her, I recall occasional phrases both of love's sweet spirit and poses of her exquisite body that made me shudder with delight.
Month in, month out, we met in private once at least a week, and once a fortnight or so I took mother and daughter to the theatre and supper afterwards. In that summer I bought a house in Kensington Gore opposite Hyde Park and only a few doors away from the mansion of the Sassoons, whom I came to know later. This little house gave me a place in London society. I gave occasional dinners and parties in it, helped by Lord Folkestone and the Arthur Walters, and had a very real success. I remember Mrs. Walter once advising me to invite a new pianist who was certain to make a great name for himself, and the first time I met him I arranged an evening for him: a hundred society people came to hear him and went away enthusiastic admirers. It was Paderewski on his first visit to London, and mine was the first house in which he played.
Of course I would have had Laura there to hear him, but it was difficult for her to go out in the evening without her mother, and I could not stand the mother.
She made herself the centre of every gathering by rudeness, if in no other way, and Laura would not hear a word criticizing her. I remember saying once to her, 'You got all your beauty and grace from your father.'
She was annoyed immediately. 'I got my skin from my mother,' she retorted,
'and my hair as well and my heart, too, which is a good thing for you, Sir, as you may find out,' and she made a face at me of exquisite childishness that enchanted me as much as her loyalty. Girls nearly always prefer their mother to their father: why?
One evening Laura and her mother came to a small evening party I gave in Kensington Gore and Mrs. Lynn Linton was there, who was by way of being a great admirer of mine and a great friend. Laura sang for us: she had been admirably trained by Lamperti of Milan, whom I knew well, but she had only a small voice and her singing was of the drawing-room variety. But afterwards, feeling that she was suffering through the failure of her song. I got her to act a scene from Phedre and she astonished everyone: she was a born actress of the best! Everyone praised her most warmly in spite of the mother's pinched air of disapproval: she was always against Laura's acting. But Mrs.
Lynn Linton took me aside and advised me to get rid of the mother: 'She's impossible; the girl's a wonder and very good to look at, you Lothario! Or are you going to marry her?'
'Marry,' I replied, 'sure,' for Laura was within hearing.
'Get rid of the mother first,' advised Mrs. Lynn Linton. 'She's no friend of yours, anyone can see that. How have you offended her?' I shrugged my shoulders; have likes and dislikes any avowable reason?
I found it difficult, not to say impossible, to get any sex-knowledge from Laura. Like most girls with any Irish strain in them, she disliked talking of the matter at all. I asked her, 'When did you first come to realize the facts of
