“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”
A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”
“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god called Money. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”
“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.
“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is [[138]]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”
“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.
“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”
“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”
“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”
Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.