Page:My Secret Life Vol 2.djvu/36



"The bonnet will be home", said I, "let us go." "Allons, allons", so off we went. It was dusk when we got in the cab. "I am to put on the stockings if I give you a pair, and to feel", I said. "No man has, c'est trop fort, you ask too much; you may put on garters below the knee." "Why not above?" "Oh! quite different", said she, "in the fields no girl minds putting her garter on before all the world below knee; but above, sh! that is disgrace." Such is fashion, I have seen an Italian market-woman stoop forward and piss whilst talking to a man (a neighbouring stall-keeper): she saw no harm. An English woman would burst first; yet if the Italian had put his hand rudely up her legs, that man might have been stabbed by the woman. Louise saw no indecency up to the knees, but above was a disgrace. "Put your boots up", I said, up they went. "I may put garter to there?" said I feeling outside. "Yes." I shoved my hand up her petticoats on to her thighs, they closed, and down went the legs: a squeal, a struggle, but on her thighs I kept it until I got to the house.

We let ourselves in, the bonnet had not come, Louise —31—