'
For a moment Heliodora stood as though she would let him thus
depart. Basil was nearing the entrance to the corridor, when she
sprang after him. Her arms were about his neck; her body clung
against his; she breathed hotly into his eyes as she panted forth
words, Latin, Greek, all burning with shameless desire. But Basil
was not thus to be subdued. The things that he had heard and seen,
and now at last the hand-to-hand conflict, had put far from him all
temptation of the flesh; his senses were cold as the marbles round
about him. This woman, who had never been anything to him but a lure
and a peril, whom he had regarded with the contempt natural in one
of his birth towards all but a very few of her sex, now disgusted
him. He freed himself from her embrace with little ceremony.
'Have I deceived you?' he asked. 'Have I pretended to come here for
anything but my own purpose, which you pretended to serve?'
Heliodora stood in a strange attitude, her arms thrown back, her
body leaning forward--much like some fierce and beautiful animal
watching the moment to spring.
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