And there are no half-way houses, no compromises, in a young man's
creed. It's swallow all, or be damned to you. It's believe or be lost.

And thinking over the little girl in the Chinese garden, there had
come into Marco's heart, a thought past enduring. If little Golden
Bells did not believe, then little Golden Bells was lost. She might
have everything in this world, in this life, an emperor for a father,
kings for suitors, a great poet for a minstrel, a wizard for an
entertainer; but once the little blue shadow left her body, she was
lost forever. And the sight came to him of little Golden Bells
going down the dim and lonely alleys of death, and weeping, weeping,
weeping. . .Her eyes would be shot with panic, and the little mouth
twisted, and the little flowery hands twitching at each other. And
it would be cold there for her who was so warm, and it would be dark
there for her who loved light, and the Golden Bells of her voice
would be lost in the whistling and clanging of the stars as they
swung by in their orbits. He to be in the great delight of paradise,
and she to be in the blue-gray maze between the worlds -- what tragedy!

Kings might bring her presents, a husband might bring her happiness;
but if he could only bring her salvation! If he could only tell her
of the Bitter Tree!

The body, when you came to think of it, mattered little. All the
beauty in the world could not endure more than its appointed span.
Helen was dust now, and Deirdre nothing. What had become of the
beauty of Semiramis, Alexander's darling; and Cleopatra, who loved
the great proconsul; and Bathsheba, for whom David of the Psalms
fell from grace? And Balkis, queen of Sheba, with her apes, ivory,