Explore "The Pot of Basil" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Even as he spoke, Tiretta regretted, and blushed over, the nature of his mission. It was not its insolence -- that was nothing in those days; it was its obvious misapplication. For here was no rustic Hebe, no frolic _campagnarde_, as he had at first inclined to suppose, but a damsel of position, as seemed somehow evident from her manner. That, eloquent to him of the inexplicable shibboleth of caste, told him, being a gentleman and a Gileadite, that he had presumed. He awaited in considerable trepidation her answer.
It followed, and without hesitation, witheringly enough.