"1950," her mother mused. "So you think that, when you're fifteen years older than I, you'll see the millennium? It sounds a long way off--1950. But, Muriel, you've no idea how near it really is and how little people will have changed." "You said just now how much they had changed in the last ten years." "I think that in these ten years they have accomplished what ordinarily would have begun long before and taken longer. You can't expect to have another reign like Queen Victoria's." "No, thank goodness," said Muriel fervidly. "England wouldn't be England without that reign." "The question is, 'Is England our England?'" Muriel countered. "I should say that England belongs to a few rich people and that the reason why it does was the worship of money during the Victorian Age." "I don't think that people worshiped money then more than they did at any other period of the world's history. People will always worship money, because people worship themselves, and they think that money gives them the opportunity to express that worship." "It's disgusting," Muriel ejaculated. "Yes, but have you ever thought how easy it is to be disgusted by anything to do with money when one has plenty oneself? I feel that the best that can be said for your Socialist state is that if nobody could have more than a certain amount and everybody had that amount it might end in people's despising money." "Oh, my dear mother," Muriel burst in impatiently, "must you really trot out the old legend that Socialism means equal money for all? It doesn't really mean anything of the kind." In a moment Muriel was embarked upon a passionate disquisition about the real aims of Socialism; and Mary felt with a thrill of pleasure that she had lured her daughter into revealing some of herself without being aware that she was doing so and in the knowledge becoming self-conscious and reserved. After their talk, in which Muriel admitted that her mother displayed an unusual ability to understand her point of view, there seemed the likelihood of a friendship springing up between the mother and daughter. Mary talked to her about Geoffrey, and it was agreed between them that Muriel should pay a visit to Wood Green. "For perhaps with tact Geoffrey's wife may grow less suspicious of my advances. I was too precipitate when I visited them in November. I was so much distressed by the rooms and so much upset to think about my own behavior's being the cause of it all, that I foolishly suggested bringing the little girl to live with us here. But if you were to go, dear child, you would manage better than I can to reassure his wife." A week or two later Muriel set out to pay her first visit; but when she reached 45 Almond Terrace the vulturine landlady told her that Mr. and Mrs. Alison had gone away without an address. "There's nothing to be done now," Mary lamented. "I left it until it was too late." "You did all you could, mother."