“It’s funny,” said Tony thoughtfully, as Ghail looked out a window at the lighted ways and skyscrapers of New York. “It’s funny that my conscience doesn’t seem to bother me any more. You remember I told you about it?”
He was sipping a final highball. Ghail stared almost affrightedly at the incredible panorama before her—a city ten miles long, with millions of bright lights, with mechanisms moving swiftly along its streets, with moving electric signs everywhere and even floating overhead to the sound of motors.
“I know, Tony,” said Ghail, not turning around.
“Maybe it’s dead,” said Tony humorously. “It used to bother me a lot.”
Then his conscience spoke. Startlingly. It said smugly that it was very well satisfied with Tony, and that he could be sure that his contentment was the result of its approval. He was very normally married, he was so far reasonably faithful to his wife—though he had turned around twice, today, to look at nylon-stockinged legs—and he had become a thriving young executive.
Tony denied it indignantly. But he was! said his conscience complacently. He was the executive head of the joint kingdom of djinns and men of Barkut, and he was arranging for the gradual introduction of an American standard of civilization. Eventually there would be electric refrigerators, nylon stockings, fertilizer, radio, and bubble gum in Barkut. It would be the result of Tony’s executive action. And he was young. So he was a young executive. So his conscience was pleased with him, and he should feel the greatest happiness possible to man, because of his conscience’s approval. “Not dead,” said Tony grimly, “but merely sleeping.”
Ghail turned from the window.
“Tony,” she said, just a little bit unhappy, “I’m homesick! This world of yours is so big! So tremendous! There are so many people! I will stay here if you wish it—”
“I think,” said Tony, “we can start back day after tomorrow. All right?”
She smiled at him, warmly. He put down his glass and stood up. He put his arms around her.
“But there’s one thing,” he observed comfortably, “that you can’t beat this world for! Ten million people all around you may be daunting, but there’s one thing we’ve got here that we can never be sure of in Barkut! Here, my dear, we’ve got privacy!”
He reached up and turned off the light.