On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

going to discuss with you will please remain behind your Herkos Odonton. You know the ex-, pression? No?' The wide smile lit up his face. 'Then, if I may say so, your education was incomplete. It is from the classical Greek. It means literally "the hedge of the teeth".
    It was the Greek equivalent of your "top secret". Is that agreed?'
    Bond shrugged. 'If you tell me secrets that affect my profession, I'm afraid I shall have to pass them on.'
    'That I fully comprehend. What I wish to discuss is a personal matter. It concerns my daughter, Teresa.'
    Good God! The plot was indeed thickening! Bond concealed his surprise. He said, 'Then I agree.' He smiled, '"Herkos Odonton" it is.'
    'Thank you. You are a man to trust. You would have to be, in your profession, but I see it also in your face. Now then.' He lit a Caporal and sat back in his chair. He gazed at a point on the aluminium wall above Bond's head, only occasionally looking into Bond's eyes when he wished to emphasize a point. 'I was married once only, to an English girl, an English governess. She was a romantic. She had come to Corsica to look for bandits ' - he smiled - 'rather like some English women adventure into the desert to look for sheiks. She explained to me later that she must have been possessed by a subconscious desire to be raped. Well' - this time he didn't smile -'she found me in the mountains and she was raped - by me. The police were after me at the time, they have been for most of my life, and the girl was a grave encumbrance. But for some reason she refused to leave me. There was a wildness in her, a love of the unconventional, and, for God knows what reason, she liked the months of being chased from cave to cave, of getting food by robbery at night. She even learned to skin and cook a moufflon, those are our mountain sheep, and even eat the animal, which is tough as shoe leather and about as palatable. And in those crazy months, I came to love this girl and I smuggled her away from the island to Marseilles and married her.' He paused and looked at Bond.' The result, my dear Commander, was Teresa, my only child.'
    So, thought Bond. That explained the curious mixture the girl was - the kind of wild 'lady' that was so puzzling in her. What a complex of bloods and temperaments! Corsican English. No wonder he hadn't been able to define her nationality.
    'My wife died ten years ago ' - Marc-Ange held up his hand, not wanting sympathy - 'and I had the girl's education finished in Switzerland. I was already rich and at that time I was elected Capu, that is chief, of the Union, and became infinitely richer - by means, my dear Commander, which you can guess but need not inquire into. The girl was - how do you say? - that charming expression, "the apple of my eye", and I gave her all she wanted. But she was a wild one, a wild bird, without a proper home, or, since I was always on the move, without proper supervision. Through her school in Switzerland, she entered the fast international set that one reads of in the newspapers - the South American millionaires, the Indian princelings, the Paris English and Americans, the playboys of Cannes and Gstaad. She was always getting in and out of scrapes and scandals, and when I remonstrated with her, cut off her allowance, she would commit some even grosser folly - to spite me, I suppose.' He paused and looked at Bond and now there was a terrible misery in the happy face. 'And yet all the while, behind her bravado, the mother's side of her blood was making her hate herself, despise herself more and more, and as I now see it, the worm of self-destruction had somehow got a hold inside her and, behind the wild, playgirl facade, was eating away what I can only describe as her soul.' He looked at Bond.' You know that this can happen, my friend - to men and to women. They burn the heart out of themselves by living too greedily, and suddenly they examine their lives and see that they are worthless. They have had everything, eaten