"It all depends on what you want in the end. Do you know I have a feeling sometimes that we are all just as much in cages as these animals, and can't get out without breaking something. The cages Chance dropped us into when we were born. Think how enormous and how interesting the earth is! And how much of it shall you and I ever see unless we break away from the particular bits we are imprisoned in? Just look at that old lion. He has settled down, quite pleased, forgetting that there was a time when he, or his ancestors, walked where they wished for miles in the jungle. And a lot of us copy him. Satisfied in captivity because it is comfortable. We don't remember what it was like in the days of our freedom but common-sense tells us it was unsheltered and unsure. My ancestors may have been gipsies and, if I had the courage, I might be one again by breaking things. Ordinarily, Martha and Mary have got me till I am seventeen; then it will be some finishing place in France for a year, and then Mother comes home and I shall be considered luckier than most girls in squeezing a Season or so out of Burma before Dad retires."
"During which you will marry, Ferlie, and settle down like a well-behaved little lioness and..."
"Live Mother's life all over again for her—ugh!"
She stared at the lion.
"No I shan't. It can stay there if it likes, and all the other fool-animals who don't know their own strength. I've got some inkling of mine. I am going to get out of the cage."
A passing keeper warned her not to shake the bars and not to go so near, Miss.
She ignored him, clinging fervently to her subject.
"That old elephant could turn the howdah off his back, kill at least twenty people and overset the monkey-house inside quarter of an hour. And, instead, he just walks stupidly up and down, up and down."
"Please don't put ideas into his head in passing," begged Cyprian.
"Well, he's only an animal and so would misuse his regained power. But a man needn't," said Ferlie, hot-footed on the trail of great discoveries, "a man needn't... Are you happy, Cyprian?"