nother fuck. "No you shan't have it,"--nor
would she let me. The oysters and champagne made her more complaisant,
but she was angry and snappish. After another fuck she got up and left
me before her usual time, and I went away wondering at this, and at the
number of women who had been, or who said they had been with child by
me.

Soon after she was loving, sad, and serious, was sorry I would not have
liked the child, for it was certainly mine, but she would get rid of it.
Then in the familiarity of a lewd man and woman naked in bed together,
she told me a lot about herself.

She _was_ married, she lived with him and her mother, but loathed
her husband. "He,--he the miserable wretch,--he touch _me_, the
dirty beast!--I'd sooner die than let him," she cried, "if he wanted
even,--but he does not want _me_,--what he wants he gets elsewhere, not
with _me_," said she with strong emphasis. If she left him, she would
have to support her mother alone,--perhaps it would come to that some
day,--she was quite prepared for it. They ate and drank together when
he was at home, but had not slept together for years. He kept the house
comfortably enough,--perhaps he would so long as she took trouble about
it, for he did not care so long as he got his food good. Yes she did
meet a friend. It got her luxuries she could not get any other way; her
husband knew she got money elsewhere, for she dressed in a way he must
know his money would not enable her to do. He asked no questions, and
did not care nor heed, nor seem to notice. That was pretty well all I
ever got out of her. Hannah drunk, and talking to me one day said he was
a very little man, and a brewer's clerk, "a hop o' my thumb," she called
him. "Never mind what my friend does," said Louisa, "I've known him some
years,--he does something of course, he does not meet me for nothing,
but I tell you he has never spent in me,--no man has spent in me for
years but you." "Do you frig your friend?" "If you like, anything else
you like, it's all the same,--I'm not going to say; but neither he
nor any one else has spent in me,--no man's seed has been up me for
two years or more. The first night you had me I spent first, you spent
after; the next time as your seed touched me, I felt a shiver run right
through me, and I got in the family way at that very instant, I'm sure."
Louisa was particular in her language, she never said "spunk,"--thought
it a nasty word,--she always said "seed," or "stuff