CHAPTER XVIII
LOVE OR HATE?
Eh! you dull old Mark Emmett, what a difficult task you have set yourself! Do you really imagine that you can convey to the minds of strangers an adequate idea of a woman, young, exotic, voluptuous and divinely pretty, and with it all changeable, impenetrable as the waters of the lake?
I suppose if I had been born a woman I should have been able to understand the various moods of Princess Neit-akrit. As a mere straightforward male creature, I must confess that I was completely at sea.
Of course, originally, she must have hated the idea of any man—be he beloved of all the gods or—not coming between her and the crown of Kamt, which already she must have looked upon as her own.
She was so absolutely queen of this land by her beauty, her fascination, her wonderful personality, that it must have been terribly galling to her suddenly to see a stranger placed, in virtue of his mystic descent, immeasurably above her in the hearts of the entire population of Kamt.
So much I understood and appreciated. Neit-akrit was a woman; she would have been more than human if she had not resented the intrusion of the beloved of the gods. I suppose that she hated Hugh at first, hated his power over the people, hated the very messenger who knelt at his feet and brought homage to him from distant cities—homage which in future and in his presence was denied to her.
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