MY SECRET LIFE
garments. Now she got into slipshot dressing again, and began to talk baudy. She had told Louise how she got her living, and talked about making money by f*cking, so she told me; but she would not let me take any liberties with her before Louise. She went out leaving me alone with her, taking my money when she returned. It is a wonder to me now how I stood all this, felt I was being humbugged, played with, and yet things went on as I describe. Three weeks had elapsed, or more, and yet I had never felt Louise's c*nt. So I told Camille she was humbugging me. Louise got funny in her behaviour to Camille, said she would or wouldn't, and one day they had a quarrel, in which Louise insolently remarked about something she wanted, that Camille would do well not to show the point of her nose in the village any more. When alone I said to Camille, I was not to have the girl I supposed. Who hindered me? "Help me." "How?" Being in a blackguard humour I said, "Make her drunk, and then I will have her." No, it should never be said that that happened in her rooms; if a woman let a man of her own free will, well and good; if he got into her fair and square, good; a woman might do what she liked, — it was natural to have a man; — if Louise liked it, it was not her business; but she would not have her made drunk.
I said she was always in the way. She said she must live there. "You would like me to go out of town for a fortnight." Said I, "That is the best thing you can do." She said she could not.
I insisted, and at length she agreed to go for ten days, I paying her I think fifteen pounds for her lodgings. Off she went, and I dare say went to a friend's
—21—