Robert, bending to her, caught her by the shoulders, and, lifting her to her feet, kissed her mouth.
“No, no!” he cried. “Stay, fair priestess of the ungovernable flesh. What brought you here?”
Lycabetta knitted her white fingers together beseechingly.
“Your Majesty is a most Christian king. Will you promise me your pardon if I confess to a pagan superstition?”
Robert kissed her again and laughed. Her trained senses knew the unreality of his kisses, of the words with which he answered her.
“Exquisite idol, I could pardon you much for the sake of your kisses. What bountiful wind has blown you to the height of this Sicilian hillock?”
Lycabetta answered him humbly, the false humility enhancing her exuberant beauty.
“When I and my women followed your Majesty from Naples—for what could such poor sunflowers as we are do without our sun?—I learned that on this hill there stood long ago a temple to Venus, very propitious to women of my kind, who came and prayed there. Your father suffered no daughters of delight to ply their trade in Syracuse, and so in gratitude for our happy restoration I came to kneel in the ancient, sacred dust. My litter bore me part of the way, till the path became too steep and I had even to climb like a peasant or abandon my purpose.”
Robert smiled condescension.
“Dear goddess of exquisite desires, our piety has power to pardon your paganism. I am king over the pagan shrine as over the Christian altar. But, before I absolve you, I have a command to lay upon you.” His smile became cruel as he spoke, for a scheme of revenge, exquisitely evil, possessed him.