Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist

'But supposing the girl is young and ignorant?' He shrugged. 'If she's been paid I don't see that that makes much difference. These girls always have older friends to whom they can go for advice, or know of some old woman who'll do the necessary. But what beats me is why you should have become so het-up about all this.'

Mary saw the red light. She had already been dangerously near to stating her own case. If she pursued the subject further it might easily ring a bell in his mind and cause him to recognize her. Then goodbye to all hope of getting her own back on him. With an effort she pulled herself together and said in a calmer voice. 'You are quite right. It is only that I'm sorry for girls who have to earn their living that way and, as a woman, resent the fact that men's lust should force them to it.'

'Oh come! I admit that prostitution could not exist if there were not the demand that keeps it going. But the majority of these girls are just lazy sluts who prefer to lie late in bed in the morning, deck themselves out in clothes they could not otherwise afford, then spend most of their time drinking or dancing in bars and clubs, rather than do an honest day's work.' 'Perhaps that is so; but there must be exceptions.' 'No doubt there are. But what has that got to do with the fact that I tried to kiss you? In the most respectable circles, from their 'teens on, when boys and girls like each other they kiss without any thought of going to bed together afterwards. I can only suppose that you've got some awful Freudian complex that turns you into an icicle at the touch of a man.'

'It's not that,' she said with an effort. 'I'm quite normal. I enjoy being kissed by a man I like. But. . . well ... I do need a chance to make up my mind if I like him enough first.'

The taxi had just pulled up outside the house in which she was living, and Barney said with a smile, 'Then I haven't blotted my copy-book irretrievably. I'm glad about that. May I take it that Sunday is still on?'

'Yes,' she nodded as he helped her out. 'I'm afraid I've behaved rather stupidly. I didn't mean to. Please forgive me. And thank you very much for this evening. Good night.'

Still much puzzled by her outburst he watched her go up the steps and let herself in, then he told the taxi to drive him to his rooms in Warwick Square.

While undressing, Mary did her best to reassess the relationship between them, of which only she was aware. The views he had expressed, obviously with complete honesty, on a man's obligations, or lack of them, to a girl with whom he had slept, depending on whether she had given herself to him for love or for money, had made a considerable impression on her. In fact, as a general principle, she found it difficult not to accept them. But, having for five years nurtured a bitter grudge against him as the author of all her personal sufferings, she found it impossible to dissociate him from them overnight.

The carefree attitude that he still displayed to life, his passing himself off as a lord, and his taking it for granted that she would let him make love to her after only a few hours spent in his company, all combined to reinforce her belief that he was cynical, unscrupulous, heartless, and a menace to any woman who was fool enough to fall for him. But in this case it was he who had fallen for her. The anxiety he had displayed about her meeting Ratnadatta on Saturday evening, and his eagerness to see her again, was, she felt, ample evidence of that; and as she dropped off to sleep she was savouring in advance the triumph she would enjoy when she had led him on into a state in which she would make him utterly miserable with frustrated desire.

On the Saturday evening she duly kept her appointment with Ratnadatta at Sloane Square Tube Station. Sleek, paunchy, his brown eyes expressionless behind the pebble lenses, but his rabbit teeth protruding in an ingratiating smile, he greeted her most politely, then beckoned up the leading taxi on the rank.

He was dressed as she had seen him on previous occasions, in a pale blue suit of thinnish material, over which he now had a light fawn overcoat. Apart from the colour of his skin, the only indications of his Eastern origin were that his hat was of the kind habitually worn by Mr. Nehru, and that he smelled strongly of scent. As they got into the taxi Mary caught a pungent whiff of it; but to that she was far from objecting, as during their talks together at Mrs. Wardeel's she had several times had to suppress an impulse to back away from him on account of his breath. It had a curiously sweet yet unpleasant odour like that of bad lobster, and she hoped that his having scented himself so lavishly this evening would help to counteract it.

The taxi took them only half-a-mile then pulled up outside a small restaurant in Chelsea. Its Eurasian proprietor welcomed Ratnadatta as a valued patron and, bowing them to the back of the restaurant, led them upstairs to a small room in which a table was laid for two.

Although her host was on the youthful side of middle-age, it had somehow not occurred to Mary that he might have amorous designs upon her. But from her black year she was well aware of the use to which such private dining-rooms were usually put and, as her glance fell on a sofa against one wall, she was seized with swift revulsion at the thought of such an encounter with him.

Catching her uneasy look, he said quickly, 'You haf no objection, plees; the things off weech we shall talk are not for other ears.'

Momentarily reassured, she replied: 'Yes, of course. I quite understand.'

When the menu was produced he urged her to order whatever she fancied, so she chose potted shrimps, a tournedo and Coupe Jacques; on which he said that the same would suit him too.

As the proprietor left the room, she remarked, 'I thought that Theosophists who have achieved initiation had to become vegetarians.'

He chuckled. 'Those who are Theosophists only are little people. They know nothing. We off the Brotherhood haf passed beyond such senseless taboos. Off commandments we haf but one, "Do what thou wilt shall be the Whole off the Law".'

She smiled back at him. 'That sounds an easy philosophy to follow.'

'It ees good, very good. It frees the mind from all care - all inhibitions. With the shackles off convention thrown aside, life becomes all pleasure. That ees as the Great One wishes for us.'

'You speak as though the three Masters in whom the Theosophists believe were one.'

'Yes, plees. As in much other things, they make great error. There ees only one Supreme Entity and he can give us all our wishings.' At that moment a waiter came in with the first course and Ratnadatta added quickly, 'We talk of this more later, yes. Eat now and enjoy.'

During the meal he plied Mary with questions, sometimes direct, and sometimes oblique, so that she could not be quite certain at what he was driving. Mostly they concerned her past, her religious beliefs, and the life she was leading at present. Owing to the practice she had had in answering similar questions put by Barney two nights before, she found herself able to answer much more readily and even embroider convincingly the picture she had built up. On the subject of religion she took special pains to assure him that although she had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, she had long since ceased to be a practising one, and now regarded the hard and fast beliefs demanded by that faith as quite unacceptable to an intelligent individual.

At times she tried to lighten her replies to his catechism in the hope of bringing a little humour into their conversation; but the Indian did not respond and continued to regard her steadily from behind his thick-lensed spectacles. However, the food was good, if not pretentious, and he proved an attentive host. When the pudding had been served he poured her another glass of wine and asked her about her sex life.