She approached the cloakroom and fastened her eyes onto mine, not caring that I had obviously been staring at her. She removed her wrap and the cape she was wearing and handed them to me.

”Parlez vous francais?” she asked. Her accent was mixed up, if I was not mistaken she was English and quite possibly from London. She was obviously not a natural French speaker and did not know Austrian. Part of the reason I was hired was that I had travelled around Europe a good deal in my youth and had more than a passing ability in several languages. The fact that I had to make some rather quick exits from a couple of countries was not raised in my interview with the manager.

“Oui. Mademoiselle. I am also reasonably fluent in English as well,” I said, bowing slightly towards her.

She smiled at me while her eyes quickly flicked down and back up my body, seeming to quickly come to some judgment.

“Very good. The French can be tiresome if you make an error in their language, I confess I was not looking forward to making myself understood in Austria.” She paused, still debating whatever decision she had come to.

Finally she turned to the commissar beside me and in the broadest cockney accent, almost as if coming from an east end whore’s mouth, she said “Make sure that this geezer” – she smiled briefly at me – “is to attend to my requests, guv!” Her eyes turned to the receding back of the Prince to emphasise her point.

I barely refrained from laughing out loud as the commissar looked to me for a translation. The commissar replied in his best English “As you request... Madame Pearl.”

She turned back to me, feigning confusion.

“Your wish is our command Miss Pearl,” I said.

She smiled broadly and said “Well, lead me to my private box my good man.”

After consulting the booking list, I moved forward and led her up the wide main stairs. As we entered the corridor behind the premier boxes I noted that the Prince and his entourage had moved to the south side of the main hall while Miss Pearl’s box was to the north. In the course of the walk we both remained silent until we reached our destination and I unlocked the door and held the door open for her to enter.

As she entered I was unable to help myself from looking at her displayed cleavage, a single silver, tear-shaped sapphire pendant resting between her breasts and the tops of her areolae, which were a very deep pink, probably applied with make-up to accentuate them as was the fashion, showing from beneath the silver trim of her dress. I glanced back up to find her eyes upon mine; I blushed, thinking that I had ruined my chances of having an easy time for the rest of the night. She made no comment and proceeded into the small room.

I followed behind her, to find the box was only about 12 yards from the stage on the first tier and had only one item of furniture, a large chaise longue placed three yards behind the rail and raised