Gynecocracy

She made me rinse my mouth with Condy's fluid and water, and then put me to bed in the other room, leaving the door between it and her own room open. She covered me up and I soon fell asleep.

CHAPTER 4

Elise-the Last Time

When I awoke it was evidently late in the evening for Elise was undressing Mademoiselle and what had awakened me was the angry sound of Mademoiselle's voice.

"You must do as I order you, Elise, or leave the house tomorrow morning without a character. You allowed him to outrage Miss Maud, and if I am to retain you in my service, you must be punished by being yourself outraged in the same way. Go and fetch that great big canvas linen bag. You have finished my hair. You may take twenty minutes to make up your mind while I see how he is."

"If I do, Mademoiselle, I will give it him, I will torture, I will tear him, I will-"

"You may punish him as you please," Mademoiselle answered in her calm unruffled tones.

Elise left the room and Mademoiselle came to me.

She was in a dressing gown and her lovely hair, falling over her shoulders, was tied in large knots at intervals for the night.

I lay on my back with my eyes open.

Mademoiselle asked me how I was, and brought me some chicken broth and delicious white Vienna bread, with a glassful of some clear sparkling frothy liquid.

I was startled, was it-just fresh?

Mademoiselle laughed. "No," she said. "No, Julian, it is not-not-not Elixir-it is Veuve Cliquot. I mean," quickly catching her words, "not widow's water, her wine-Champagne."

I was not quite satisfied even yet. It might, I thought, still be a joke at my expense. Mademoiselle's mischief knew no bounds. She, however, put the glass to my lips, and I could not refuse to take a sip. It was wine, and excellent.

There was a knock at the door, and Elise, bidden to enter, came through into the room in which we were. Elise, wearing such an angry, depressed, crestfallen countenance as I had never thought possible for her, held in her hands a great brown canvas bag-one of the bags in fact in which the household linen weekly went to the laundry in the outbuildings. "There," she said, throwing it on the floor with a gesture of disgust.

"Well, Elise, have you decided, have you made up your mind? Will you submit or go?" Mademoiselle asked, amused at Elise's air.

"Mademoiselle," she answered, choking, "it is too bad, too wicked, too disgraceful, to treat a young woman so-

"Now, Elise," interrupted Mademoiselle, "yes, or no?"

"I can't say no."

"Exactly! You are aware your breach of trust, your abominable dereliction of duty, deserve the severest punishment. Miss Maud no longer a virgin-through your fault; and this jackanapes here is in possession of the experience necessary to enable him to beguile every woman in the house into becoming a mother, all through your fault," said Mademoiselle, standing in the middle of the now brilliantly lighted room, her eyes flashing. "Undress yourself," she added, peremptorily.

"Not before him," retorted Elise, growing pale.

"Yes, before him. Stay! Get up, Julian-stand with your back to the bedpost." And drawing my arms round it behind my back, she tied my wrists together with her handkerchief, fixing me exactly as Elise had fixed Maud upstairs.

Mademoiselle then told Elise to undress.

Slowly she did so, until, at length, she too was stark naked.

Looking foolish, but still more angry, she went into Mademoiselle's room for a birch which she brought her mistress and handed to her upon her knees. Mademoiselle caressed the green slender well-budded twigs positively with affection and twisted the rod three or four times through the air with supreme satisfaction. Elise had then to lie over a pouf, placed exactly in front of me, and to spread her legs wide asunder. I saw and gazed at all she possessed-her muttering did not prevent my doing so although it undoubtedly sounded ominous-but as I had already made a full acquaintance with her thighs and bottom, I wondered why she troubled to conceal them with petticoats. I was struck by the very different impression given by a partial view of nakedness from that given by the complete revelation. Elise was a lovely girl, not so slender or delicate as Mademoiselle, but certainly lovely.

She placed herself in position and received thirty-six slow, deliberate stripes which Mademoiselle delivered with all her force.

Elise writhed and twisted, but took the punishment bravely, not crying out but sobbing quietly.

Presently, however, she shrieked. At the close of the punishment with the birch, Mademoiselle bade Elise remain as she was, and went into her room, when I heard her open a drawer. She returned holding a round stick about a foot long and as thick as the butt end of a billiard-cue, in her hand; from its end depended several knotted pieces of whipcord. The moment Elise, who was still lying on the pouf, caught a glimpse of this, she jumped up and danced about the room.