Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/231

Rh Next day at three o'clock I knocked at Mrs. Mayhew's: she opened the door herself: I cried, "how kind of you" and once in the room drew her to me and kissed her time and time again: she seemed cold and numb.

For some moments she didn't speak, then: "I feel as if I had passed through fever", she said, putting her hands through her hair, lifting it in a gesture I was to know well in the days to come: "Never promise again if you don't come: I thought I should go mad: waiting is a horrible torture! Who kept you?—some girl?" and her eyes searched mine.

I excused myself; but her intensity chilled me. At the risk of alienating my girl-readers, I must confess this was the effect her passion had on me. When I kissed her, her lips were cold. But by the time we had got upstairs, she had thawed: she shut the door after us gravely and began: "See how ready I am for you!" and in a moment she had thrown back her robe and stood before me naked: she tossed the garment on a chair; it fell on the floor: she stooped to pick it up with her bottom to me: I kissed her soft bottom and caught her up by it wihwith [sic] my hand on her sex. She turned her head over her shoulder:

"I've washed and scented myself for you, Sir: how do you like the perfume? and how do you like this bush of hair?" and she touched her Mount with a grimace; "I was so ashamed of it as a girl: I used to shave it off: that's what made it grow so thick, I believe: one day my mother saw it and made me stop shaving; oh, how ashamed of it I was: it's animal, ugly:—don't you hate it? Oh! tell the truth!" she cried, "or rather, don't; tell me you love it".

"I love it," I exclaimed, "because it's yours!" "Oh you dear lover," she smiled, "you always find the right word, the flattering salve for the sore!"