"But, Baroness, I love you...."

"That is one reason more why you should not make me angry."

"But ..."

"Oh! I am in such a rage," the energetic little woman said; "I could
flog you like _Venus in the Fur_[2] did her slave."

[Footnote 2: One of Sacher-Masoch's novels.--TRANSLATOR.]

"Let me be your slave," the Stock Exchange baron replied ardently, "and
I will gladly put up with everything from you. Really, in this sable
cloak, and with a whip in your hand, you would make a most lovely
picture of the heroine of that story."

The baroness looked at the man for a moment with a peculiar smile.

"Then if I were to listen to you favorably, you would let me flog you?"
she said after a pause.

"With pleasure."

"Very well," she replied quickly. "You will let me give you twenty-five
cuts with a whip, and I will be yours after the twenty-fifth blow."

"Are you in earnest?"

"Fully."