“It’s my very own,” said Anthea; “it was given to me to sell.”
“I’ll lend you a pound,” said the learned gentleman, “with pleasure; and I’ll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to you?”
“We call her,” said Anthea carefully, “the Queen of Babylon.”
“It’ll be a pretty game if I don’t get the money to pay for cabs for her,” said Anthea.
“I sometimes think,” he said slowly, “that I am becoming insane, or that—”
“Or that I am; but I’m not, and you’re not, and she’s not.”
“Does she _say_ that she’s the Queen of Babylon?” he uneasily asked.
“This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,” he said. “I suppose I have unconsciously influenced _her_, too. I never thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! There are more things in heaven and earth—”
“Yes,” said Anthea, “heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ want more than anything on earth.”
He ran his fingers through his thin hair.
“This thought-transference!” he said. “It’s undoubtedly a Babylonian ring—or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized myself. I will see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.”
“Yes, do!” said Anthea, “and thank you so very much.”
She took the sovereign and ran down to the others.
And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight.
“But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected they seem,” she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road.
“They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,” said Jane.
“Of course they’re working. That’s what slaves are. Don’t you tell me. Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face when I see it? Why don’t their masters see that they’re better fed and better clothed? Tell me in three words.”
No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it—which the children didn’t.
“You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not careful,” said the Queen.
“Oh, no,” said Cyril; “you see they have votes—that makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.”