upon the cherry lips which immediately returned the token with interest. Yet again was prolonged intercourse exchanged between the woman and the lass upon the sofa and in an exceedingly agreeable fashion.
The directress, however, returned obstin ately to her original purpose.
'Now, dearest, we are going to use our united efforts with the corset.'
The girl, overwhelmed with grief, entreated.
'Spare me the suffering, I beg you!'
'Little fool! It is for your good.'
'My good, my happiness is to be like this near you, in comfort, free to move about. It is infinite delight. You are wicked! wicked! Let me kiss your beautiful hand at once so cruel and so kind.'
'Child!' gasped the mistress.
'Your child! Will you permit it? You shall be my loved mother. But, I beg you, never whip me again as you have to-day.'
'You are going to be whipped immediately and in the same manner unless you get up and take your stays.'
'Oh!'
With a bound, the girl was on her feet. She rushed to the corset and with lips compressed, stomach thrust in, holding her breath the while, began her vain contortions of a short time previously. Now she was to be aided by the mistress. The latter came behind her and placed her knee against the large stern of her pupil. At the same time with both her hands, she thrust forward the two sides of the stays, causing the corset to gradually make its way over the hips.
At one moment, Miss Malville thought the task was accomplished, and in her satisfaction, she permitted herself to take a long breath, an action she had tried for some moments not to indulge in.
Everything had to be begun again.
Lady Flayskin, who had felt her fingers forced back by the irresistible force of the girl's expanding sides as she took breath, became enraged and hissed:
'Well! What are you doing, little fool?'
'The most natural thing, my lady, I am breathing.'
' Know then that I am in no mood for 197
joking! A jest should never be made when a task is in course of accomplishment.'
The pretty pupil laid the words to heart. The fruitless efforts recommenced. At a moment when the stud seemed on the point of being caught properly by the hook, Miss Virginia, with a piercing cry, loosed her hold. She had inadvertently, though excusably, in her state of mind, caught a little of her delicate skin under the hook and the pain had caused her to loose hold of both hook and stud.
At length, however, one hook was fast. It was then that Miss Virginia shrieked in agony, declaring that her ladyship, while helping her, was hurting her cruelly by pinching her flesh.
Lady Flayskin consented to a moment of respite, only to inquire if her pupil would prefer to continue the task under the whip? Such a suggestion on the part of her implacable mistress did not fail to terrify the young girl.
She did her utmost to make her efforts match those of the more skilful Lady Flayskin whose fingers were engaged in pulling and working the material which seemed as though it would never yield to any treatment. Her ladyship, 198
however, worked with confidence and without pity for the unfortunate girl's flesh, which frequently became caught under the hooks, and poor Virginia who scarcely dared to breathe, had naturally no intention of groaning.
In this way the work went on for an hour, counting the time involved in necessary moments of rest, and then, quite suddenly as frequently happens in such cases, the hooks seemed to close over the buttons as by a miracle.
Her ladyship was as supremely content as if she had concluded the finest of master pieces, and inquired:
'Well?'
Silence was the sole response.
But the expression on the pale face of the poor girl, the terrible dilatation of her large eyes, the half opened mouth from which her breath seemed to hiss out like gas escaping, all this made up a reply which, for all its silence, was none the less eloquent.
The heart of Lady Flayskin remained adamantine and she remarked:
'You see now! You have done your task 199
and it was easy enough. But I notice that the stays fit too loosely; they are not drawn in at all. Come here and let me arrange that for you.'
The poor girl, with the stiff steps of an automaton, approached the mistress. She might have been a German soldier, as without turning her head to either right or left by so much as a quarter of an inch, and without bending a knee, she made her military advance. By the way in which she put her foot to the ground and the wry face which accompanied the movement, it was plain that she suffered from her narrow new boots with their exaggerated high heels and endless high sheaths which so pinched and compressed both leg and ankle. The sufferings from the boots were very real, but they did not count, so to speak, in comparison with the agonies she was now enduring from the corset.
She stopped before the mistress with a precision in her right-about half-turn which a soldier of his Imperial Majesty the German Emperor might have envied. Lady Flayskin put a knee against the magnificent posterior 200
and, taking hold of the laces, pulled with all her strength.
She then said that her efforts were being opposed by the girl whose sides were expanding spasmodically though for a most natural reason. The lungs by a reflex movement were struggling for their existence. The instinct of self-preservation is stronger than an intention to be obedient; stronger too than fear of the whip, and the girl was powerless in the grip of that instinct.
With an unpleasant laugh, the head-mistress pushed her victim towards an angle of the room across which was placed a small cupboard. Lady Flayskin was never at a loss for expedients. When she had an end in view no difficulty was permitted to oppose her for long. She had an expedient for surmounting every obstacle in her path. Virginia obeyed the push given her as though she had been a moving corpse.
The little cupboard, when opened, was found to contain, screwed down upon a stand, a pretty little capstan, similar in all respects to those employed on ships for raising the anchor. A strong silk cord was wound round it, ending in a steel hook. The handles for turning the miniature capstan were wanting, for they were, in fact, unnecessary. Lady Flay skin attached the lace of the corset to the steel hook and then pressed an electric button. The capstan then proceeded to turn with extreme deliberation while the unfortunate victim cried in scarcely andible tones that she could feel her bones cracking in her chest.
The capstan continued to turn.
Virginia, with a desperate gesture, raised her hands to her throat, crying:
'I am on fire! Air! I stifle!'
The capstan still turned, but with such slowness that a single revolution had not yet been completed.
The girl beat the air with her arms. She opened her mouth, but no sound now did she make. Her eyes rolled convulsively. A small spot of blood appeared at the corner of the mouth. She fell forwards and her face must have struck the ground had she not been held up by the hook.
Immediately the finger of Lady Flayskin was raised from the electric button and the capstan ceased to revolve.
Virginia, in a dead faint, head hanging for wards, hands touching the ground, feet resting motionless against the bottom of the capstan-stand, was raised by the strong arms of her ladyship, who proceeded to detach the hook. Then she carried her as though she had weighed no more than an infant, and laid her upon the sofa on which the two had been previously seated together.
The application of vinegar to her temples, Eau de Cologne to her wrists, and salts to her nostrils, caused Miss Malville to open her eyes, wherein clearly shone the light of reawakened terror and incipient fever. Her pallor was almost the dread pallor of death though by moments it was exchanged for an equally abnormal deep red flush. In a voice of pain, she said:
