This is a story of a kiss. The one they call the 'first royal kiss'. A kiss with the first flush of adolescent love. But it is not 19-year-old Prince William who has got the British press and public excited. It is his father, Prince Charles, 53, who publicly saluted his long-time companion, Camilla Parker Bowles at a party on Tuesday night.
The sedate peck on the cheek, lasting just seconds and endlessly replayed through column inches and a thousand photographs, is seen as yet another step down the path to public acceptance of their 30-year-old relationship.
The British tabloids, always irreverent and easily titillated, embarked on a detailed analysis of how the public display of affection actually came about. According to one more restrained account, Parker-Bowles, who had invited her Prince to a charity gala she was hosting, was in a dilemma: To kiss or not to kiss.
Eventually, she settled for the familiar option, launching a thousand columns of purple prose on the couple's exact intentions as they become steadily bolder in public.
But royal watchers say Charles and Camilla, two middle-aged people who have loved each other for years, are avoiding the situation of star-crossed royal lovers elsewhere, notably in Kathmandu, who are unable to reconcile their love lives with duty and family responsibilities.
The royal kiss continues a three-year rehabilitation campaign for Charles and Camilla after their bad press during the Diana years and in the immediate aftermath of her death. In late 1998, Parker-Bowles, once reviled as the most hated woman in Britain because she apparently upstaged Diana, beloved People's Princess, in her husband's heart, hosted a birthday party for her Prince.
Just months later, the couple enjoyed a night out at the Ritz, one of London's most famous hotels, where photographers from around the world recorded the "royal coming out" for posterity.