"Please do!"

"All this appeals to me," she said then. "It is different from
anything else--to know that a man who worships me, and whom I love
with all my heart, is so wholly mine, dependent on my will and
caprice, my possession and slave, while I--"

She looked strangely at me.

"If I should become frightfully frivolous you are to blame," she
continued. "It almost seems as if you were afraid of me already, but
you have sworn."

"And I shall keep my oath."

"I shall see to that," she replied. "I am beginning to enjoy it,
and, heaven help me, we won't stick to fancies now. You shall become
my slave, and I--I shall try to be _Venus in Furs_."

* * * * *

I thought that at last I knew this woman, understood her, and now I
see I have to begin at the very beginning again. Only a little while
ago her reaction to my dreams was violently hostile, and now she
tries to carry them into execution with the soberest seriousness.

She has drawn up a contract according to which I give my word of
honor and agree under oath to be her slave, as long as she wishes.