Explore "The Pot of Basil" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
". deep into the dying day / The happy princess followed him. "
It had been one delirious moment snatched from the hands of fate. So it was understood between them -- an impulsive contact, passionate, transient, never to be spoken of or repeated. Isabella might, if she would, have made of that mute stipulation a definite compromise with her conscience, since a princess, no less than any other woman, was free to barter her lips for one instant of delight, provided she incurred thereby no after responsibility towards their ravisher. There were flowers, in the world of gallantry, to be sipped, as well as hives to be plundered; and one was not called upon to hold oneself bound to every honey-loving freebooter whom one permitted to settle a moment and taste.