“They are sweet basil, or basil-thyme, master,” said Aquaviva--“a common stock, until enriched by good feeding. It is the way of the world all over. It is blood which makes the quality--meat-juice, and plenty of it. These are having their first weaning, and the result will show in a year, or maybe two or three. Simple enough in themselves, they will flower, when they do, fit to grace a lady’s bower. ’Tis said they flourish best on the blood of murdered men.” “Come away, Fanchette,” said Isabella. But the maid lingered. “Harkee, my friend,” said Tiretta: “I will buy one of your basils unweaned--that pretty one at the end there in the green jar--and back it against all the rest to flower first and smell the sweetest.” “As you will, master--and be a fool for your pains.” Tiretta saw the young lady into her carriage--a service accepted by her very formally and silently--and presently rode back to Colorno, his purchase under his arm. CHAPTER XII. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA “... 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. She might have thought thus, I say; only, if she had, she would not have been the passion-pure child, innocent and affectionate, of our knowledge. She was, in fact, very troubled, very shamed, over what she had done, or allowed to be done. And yet her heart, conscious-guilty as it might feel, would thrill in the memory of that moment. Though she had since made one to that unspoken compact of silence and abstention, she never had a thought but that that instant of emotional self-surrender had delivered her, a rightful captive, into the hands of her conqueror. She could never now love another man; only her love must be content to remain for all time an abstraction, a pathetic dream, impossible of realisation. If only they would consent to leave it so; to let her die unwedded--perhaps in the peaceful seclusion of a cloister.