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Waking Monday morning at Dody’s I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding. He was old. He was my stepfather. I hated him. And I’d enjoyed myself. Promptly I slid back down again stuffing the pillow over my face. Any combination of two would have been enough to send me under—all four was too much.…

And so we drove, and so we arrived at his house. And there he led me unresisting up the stairs into his bedchamber where, upon his lily-white bed, in the fullness of time he did lay me.

There is a time for asterisks and a time for speaking out. I don’t know—will all this morbid introspection int…

C. D. appeared in the drawing-room even later than I so we had a chance for only one small exchange before going in to dinner. However, it did much to make a shambles of the meal for me.

“You’re late,” I said and then I looked at him more closely, for although brushed and combed and freshly shav…

C. D. was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs and we went into the drawing-room together. Introductions again. This time by the hostess but in the same off-hand embarrassed manner as C. D. and acknowledged, I noticed, with equal off-hand embarrassment. I began to wonder if the reason for this …

We greeted each other and he steered me expertly down the ramp alongside the train and into the exact compartment desired, where he skilfully arranged our bags and cosily settled into his seat with an air of putting on his slippers and pulling out his pipe. We were travelling First Class. There was…