'You touch upon her modesty, I believe-or mine', she murmured, casting her eyes down to the thin bone china of her cup.

'Modesty may be used as a cloak for devilment-I have often known it so-and vice versa'.

'Would you then constantly upbraid one such as Mary?' Vanessa asked defensively. A warm trickle ran through her belly at that moment, which was caused not so much by the tea as by the magnetic look that this tallish man in his middle years-slightly craggy of aspect, but well-dressed withal-cast upon her.

'May I sit with you? We can converse more quietly, my dear?'

Without waiting upon permission, Percival did so and found a warm hip agreeably close to his own. His eyes took in the fetching dimple on her cheek, the sweet corners of her mouth. How many times, he wondered, had those lustrous lips been kissed? How many times, if ever, had a hand-whether male or female-found its way into her corsage to fondle those magnificent orbs which appeared to strain so impatiently through her dress?

'Upbraid?' he asked in a gentle tone. 'No, Miss Markham, such does not have a sufficient strain of strictness that the female needs. There are those I know who use the birch and cause the unveiled bottom to twist and burn. Cries of protest, of alarm, may be heard which in a quiet household are unseemly and may disturb those who had best know least about it. For myself, I employ mainly the tawse. Do you know of such?'

Blushing deeply at his choice of words, Vanessa clutched rather desperately at her cup and gazed straight before her so that naught but her attractive profile was presented to his view. No one had ever spoken to her thus before and she knew not how to reply, though having rather mumbled something was politely asked what she had said.