I turned up for Hope with a taxi (which I couldn't really afford) and repeated my reassurance to the mild mother. I entirely forgot that I had said I would collect Lena and take her to the party.
Hope was in a pink organdie affair, which ought to have made her look grown up but didn't. She was a very different girl, and my heart sank: I was going to have to work hard to get her to relax. She was nervous, afraid of having her frock crushed perhaps, but unyielding in my taxi embraces. She submitted, but with a slight struggle, to my kisses, but only on the lips, refusing to part her teeth. She let me caress the shape of her breast, through her frock, but as a concession, not as though she enjoyed it; and she would no longer laugh at anything. Her only remark about the party was the discoura
