When the door closed behind her in the private room of Lady Flayskin, the girl in an apparently overpowering access of devotion, seized the hem of the mistress's robe and put it fervently to her lips. The mistress removed her dress from the girl's hands, and said to her gently, as slavishly she knelt before her:
"Do not fall from one excess into an other. Too proud to begin with, you are now too humble. Getup, sit there and listen attentively to what I have to say to you."
The girl, slightly confused, sat down on the edge of a chair. Her pose expressed extreme contrition.
"This is what I have to say to you, Miss Malville. Greatly to my personal regret, I have been obliged to employ the whip in order to tame you. I hope and believe that the lesson will not be without its fruit. You will not oblige me to subject you to so terrible a chastisement…"
At this point, Lady Flayskin's words were broken into by a storm of tears and sobs. Miss Virginia's whole frame quivered with anguish and uncontrollable emotion as she recalled what she had been through. In tones of entreaty, she cried:
"Oh! Never! Ah! My lady, it was indeed awful!"
"Did you deserve your punishment!"
"Yes, my lady!" said the poor girl with lowered eyes, deep crimson suffusing the cheeks so deathly pale a moment before.
"It is an excellent practice to confess the faults we have committed."
She looked fixedly at the girl and continued:
"Pay good heed to what I say. When you arrived here and your father, worthy Lord Malville, presented you to me, I was able to 161
sum you up in a moment. Virginia, you have excellent qualities, but unfortunately the deplorable education to which you were subjected before entering these walls had stifled those qualities. It was clear tome, from the moment my eyes first rested on you, that I should have to commence by seriously flogging you. That first step has been made. I have now no anxiety as to your tractability."
Here the girl burst anew into tears and sobs, replying to this diagnosis of her case:
"Yes, indeed, my lady!"
The mistress motioned to her to be silent and said severely:
"I will add that you have further to learn not to interrupt. In a young girl, no conduct could appear more bold and disgracious. Apply yourself to the task of learning to listen to the end, irrespectively of the nature of the words adressed to you."
After a moment's pause to assure herself that her words had gone home, she continued:
"I have therefore had preliminary recourse to the whip because otherwise I should have failed in exacting that absolute deference to 162
my every wish which I require in the case of all my 'pupils. A moment ago, I spoke of your remarkable naturel qualities. You are very intelligent. I am sure of it. The difficulty has been that your instructors have been ignorant, that is all. Again, your physical charms are of high order, for you are beau tiful, Virginia. Your beauty, however, has been neglected."
She had drawn her chair close up to that ot the girl and, stooping down, now took one of the latter's feet into her hands. Contempt uously she drew off one low shoe and her fingers moved lightly and caressingly across the open work silk stocking on the sole of the foot.
The girl gave a nervous laugh and cried:
"Oh! my lady, stop! You tickle me!"
The mistress appeared not to hear and con tinued this strange treatment of a pupil by first lightly touching the ankle with her active fingers and then pushing her hand up the leg until it rested upon the firm-fleshed, well rounded calf.
"Shoes! What an idea to wear shoes like a waiting-woman when this strong and graceful 163
leg would show to such good effect in a high boot! You require a narrow long boot of fine kid, with polished tips, and heels so high that you would appear three inches taller than you are. You must have an arched boot that shall do justice to your charming instep. Yes, certainly! Presently you shall put on the boots you see here. They have been made expressly for you, to your measure; but the makers have been instructed to design them narrower than your shoes which they have had as a pattern. Your old shoes must be quite shabby from use."
"Oh, not in the least, my lady!"
"I have already told you that you are not to interrupt me. It is even more important that you do not contradict me."
"Certainly, my lady. What are you doing? Oh! I beg you to leave me alone! Oh! do stop!" Lady Flayskin was fingering the drawers above the thighs and she said in accents of scorn:
"I have never heard of such an idea! What a corset! And as for this busk it has no rigidity whatever. It is soft, it is yielding and useless. 164
The bones of a corset must be hard and unyield ing."
Her fingers continued groping, while Miss Virginia, with head thrown back, laughed hysterically.
Lady Flayskin at length ceased her researches and said:
"You must at once remove all this trumpery and put on the clothes which you see here. You must have remarked that we have a school uniform. We are all of us devotees of Saint Muslin. Muslin is cool, becoming, and in every way suitable for young girls. Your silk dress, on the contrary, is exceedingly pretentious. I repeat that you must try and get accustomed to our modesty of bearing.
Modesty is the noblest ornament a woman can wear aud that which man prizes, when he discovers it, more than all our other charms. It is therefore essential that your under garments should be selected with great care. What is more captivanting than a slender waist? It is our waist that gives us that gracefulness and lightness of carriage which distinguishes us from men, and it is a tight-laced corset alone which gives us this distinguishing feature. In short, it is the corset which marks the woman of superior civilisation from her humbler sisters. Without it, a woman may possess good looks, but she will remain heavy, massive, almost animal. The corset is the bestower not only of beauty and elegance but also of poise. Where the wearer has already grace of bearing, her grace will be accentuated; should she be ungrace-ful, it is the corset which will give her the charm she lacked, on condition that the lacing is tightly drawn. What can you hope for from an appliance such as you have upon you at this moment? Those ridiculous whalebones with no resistance, are no support whatever. See, too, how easily I bend them and how simple a matter it is to pass my fingers beneath your corset. Why, dear Virginia, you are not drawn in the least! We must immediately remedy matters."
She had been suiting the action to her words and her fingers which she had slipped beneath the. corset were tickling the hips of the girl who twisted herself about and laughed without pleasure.
"Undress yourself, Virginia, that I may see you in all the glory of your beauty."
Had such an order been given to the haughty girl a few days previously, that is to say, before the memorable flogging, she would only, in reply, have laughed disdainfully and sardonically.
Undress herself?
It was the lady's maid upon whom that duty devolved. Of what use is it to be the daughter of a noble house, if one is not to have servants at one's beck and call? And if the lady's maid cannot come immediately, some other woman of the household must do the bidding of her young mistress.
Doubtless such would have been the thoughts passing though Miss Virginia's brain a few days before and she would not have failed to com municate them to lady Flayskin, who in the opinion of the young lady – which she would not have hesitated to communicate – could and ought to serve her pupil as lady's maid. Was she not Miss Virginia Malville, a member of a family far more ancient and powerful than that to which Lady Flayskin belonged?
At the present moment any feeling of repugnance at the notion of baring her body before anyone except a serving-woman, did not cross the mind of the haughty young lady.
Very obediently, she sat down and, to begin with drew off the shoe which the mistress had not removed. She then unhooked her dress, and unconsciously returning to her manner of former days cast the garment aside, negli gently careless as to how or where it fell. The directress immediately scolded her with severity.