A lovely blush flamed her milky cheeks.

“Please, Georges… I… I… don’t… want you to…“ she murmured.

And, as she turned her face up toward his, he bent and applied his mouth against hers in an amorous kiss. And Marcia, trembling with fury and revulsion at being compelled to watch this degrading scene, saw Marie’s soft, slender fingers move over the masked stranger’s right hand, which reposed so provocatively on one enchantingly rounded and silken-kissed soft knee.

The young girl seemed at first hesitant; but as the kiss continued, prolonged its ecstatic moment, she yielded; it was plain that her body undulated toward the male, that her mouth fused more passionately with his, that her fingers fluttered in. delight against his pilgrimaging hand. And he, moved by Marie’s sweet submission, let his left hand rise to her golden head, furling his fingers gently, languidly, in her lustrous chignon.

The harlot, thought Marcia, white with anger and shame and she tossed her head to one side, only to be reminded of the fetter by the immediate response of the noose, which tightened around her ivory throat.

At last Mr. George-for it is simpler to call him that as Lil did-withdrew his lips from the trembling, soft, moist mouth of the quivering young girl, whose blue eyes gazed into his with a humid and languorous expression… the prelude of desire.

“You are very sweet, Marie,” he murmured, stroking her hair, now caressing her fingers playfully, circling her delicate white wrists with right thumb and forefinger, “and you are not afraid of me, are you, ma toute belle et exquise, mon amoureuse divine?”