If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly assigned to the chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the building adjoining.
Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.
In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer, secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the whim of the man in power.
The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms. And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in the despairing hearts of the colonists.
So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his wishes.
A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace, when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.
"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow morning. It goes into effect immediately:
"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private property is hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at the will of either party. Complete freedom in the sex-relationship is left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"
"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.
"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."