“Next-next week, Mr. Jack,” Molly Bashe replied in a low and unsteady voice, again lowering her eyes and averting her face from my gaze. Arthur-that is the name of my fiancй-has been transferred to Bwaniphur in India, and we shall go there after we have had our honeymoon in Italy.”

“I am sorry to hear that you will have to reside with your husband in India, for you will find it trying. But then, that is your own affair, and all I can do is to wish you well, and your husband too.”

“This is very difficult for me, Mr. Jack,” Molly Bashe faltered, and again her large dark blue eyes fixed on my face with an almost poignant appeal. “I don’t wonder that you are cynical and contemptuous of me, but I did think that perhaps-that perhaps because you did what you did, you did not hate me too much.”

Now this was really astonishing! Here was this eighteen-year-old affectatious little minx, whom I had had stripped naked, forced to suck her mother and be sucked off by the latter, thoroughly thrashed and feathered and tickled, and then fucked and utterly demeaned in a way which certainly no well-bred young lady would expect from a gentleman. Yet she was making me her confidant to tell me about her imminent marriage, and in a voice which suggested that she was not thoroughly happy with the prospect, in spite of her mother’s efforts to marry her off to anyone who might be eligible, myself included.

“We had best go back quickly, or your friend may be suspicious and think that there is some love affair between us,” I said casually.

At this she blushed even more violently, and then she suddenly blurted, “Oh, Mr. Jack, the fact is-well-I-I don’t like Arthur at all, but Mummy insists that is a brilliant match. He is an old fussbudget, more womanly than manly, and I am afraid that I will simply be just a daughter to him instead of a wife. Remembering how you seemed to enjoy me when you had me at your mercy, I-I came here half in the hope that you would teach me what it was like to make love in an ardent and passionate way. I know that I shall never look for that from Arthur.”