"You don't mind, do you ... having your own little girl hit you?"
Now, poor Penton would have spent the remainder of the night taking this "impulse" and the act which followed it as a serious problem in aesthetics, economics, feminism, and what-not ... and the two would have talked and discussed, their voices sounding and sounding in philosophic disquisition ... and, before the end, Hildreth, persuaded to take the situation seriously and enjoying the morbid attention given her, Hildreth would have gone off several times into hysterics....
My procedure was a different one:
"—of course I don't mind you following your impulses ... you should ... but also I have just as imperative an impulse—now that you suggest it—to hit you."
And I was not chary of the vigorous blows I dealt her, a tattoo of them on her back....
"Why, Johnnie," she gasped, "you—hit—me!" and her big eyes, wide with hurt, filled with tears. And she cried a little....
"There, there, dear!" I soothed. Then, with a solemn look in my face, "I couldn't resist my impulse, either."
"You mustn't do that any more, Johnnie ... but,—you must let me hit you whenever I want to."
But she never had that "impulse" again.