“Why, you say that as if it was to Wylie’s discredit!” said Maurice. “I should have thought it was a distinct feather in his cap. You don’t seem to see that just because we are English, every country that doesn’t come up to our own high standard does concern us.”
Eirene lifted her head, almost tossed it. “When,” she began, then changed the form of her sentence—“If I am ever a ruler, I will allow no English to dictate to me. I shall recognise no grievances. If the people disobey me, I shall stamp them out.”
“Making a solitude and calling it peace, indeed!” said Zoe.
“Cheerful country yours will be to live in!” said Maurice. “Are you going to have periodical killings-out, like King Twala? or shall you set half the population to kill the other half, and make the survivors fight among themselves till they are all killed, like the Kilkenny cats? Or is it only the present generation that is to be wiped out, so that you may have the children brought up in the way they should go? A lively time you’ll have when the hereditary tendencies begin to come out! Why, they’ll all have blood-feuds against you.”
“I used the wrong word,” said Eirene, with heightened colour. “I meant to say that I would stamp the people down. I will listen to no one who is in revolt; but when all rebellion has been suppressed, I shall see for myself if there are any grievances.”
“You’ll allow people to complain of them peacefully, then?”
“Certainly not; that is rebellion. But I shall oversee everything myself. Not a peasant shall be prosecuted for non-payment of taxes but the case shall come before me for revision, and the same in all departments of the state.”
“I don’t think your magistrates will hold office long,” said Maurice.
“Besides,” said Zoe, “that’s just the system that works so badly with the Roumis, Eirene. The Grand Seignior will insist on managing everything himself, and of course he can’t do more than a certain amount, and so business gets into frightful arrears all over the empire.”
“I don’t care,” said Eirene stubbornly. “I shall trust no one; that is the lesson life has taught me. The ruler’s eye will be everywhere, the ruler’s hand always ready.”