Parker was even stiller and solemner, and a new mood came over her. Perhaps this dignified gentleman was higher than she had suspected in the hierarchy of the lesser kings, she thought. Almost might he be an equal king with Francis, and she had treated him peremptorily as less, as much less.
She caught him by the hand, in her impetuousness noting his reluctance, drew him over to a sofa, and made him sit beside her. To add to Parker’s discomfiture, she dipped into a box of candy and began to feed him chocolates, closing his mouth with the sweets every time he opened it to protest.
“Come,” she said, when she had almost choked him, “is it the custom of the men of this country to be polygamous?”
Parker was aghast at such rawness of frankness.
“Oh, I know the meaning of the word,” she assured him. “So I repeat: is it the custom of the men of this country to be polygamous?”
“There is no woman in this house, besides yourself, madam, except servant women,” he managed to enunciate. “That voice you heard is not the voice of a woman in this house, but the voice of a woman miles away who is your servant, or is anybody’s servant who desires to talk over the telephone.”
“She is the slave of the mystery?” the Queen questioned, beginning to get a dim glimmer of the actuality of the matter.
“Yes,” her husband’s valet admitted. “She is a slave of the telephone.”
“Of the flying speech?”
“Yes, madam, call it that, of the flying speech.” He was desperate to escape from a situation unprecedented in his entire career. “Come, I will show you, madam. This slave of the flying speech is yours to command both by night and day. If you wish, the slave will enable you to talk with your husband, Mr. Morgan——”