Bernard Capes

“ That one hour—cherished—unspent—the seed of the unquickened pledge between us to all eternity. I could be content, knowing him a saint through that abstinence. My hour—mine—to passion to my breast—the shadow of the child that would not be born to me. He looked at me—no spectre of a dead lost love in his eyes—only a hopeless quest—bonds never to be riven. But now— Ah! I cannot kill him!'
She hid her eyes, shuddering. Narcisso, vaguely troubled, gloomed at her.
'You will not go to Messer Ludovico?' he said. ”

“ Sometimes, musing in the shades, with a lock of her long hair between her lips, she would pet her frowning fancy with the figure of a youthful Adam, golden and glorious, approaching her down an avenue of this smiling paradise, making its mazes something less than scentless ”

“ A Circe, indeed, to this coarse and animal rogue, and alive with awful and covetable lusts, to which, nevertheless, he was an admitted procurer. He had not ceased to be in her pay and confidence, cursed and repudiated though he had been by his master, her erst protector. He had not even resented that episode of his betrayal at her hands, though it had condemned him for a living to the rôle of the hired bravo. She might always do with him as she liked; overbid with one imperious word his fast pledges to others; convert his craft wheresoever she wished to her own profit. ”