“I don’t like you to mention your age,” said Menelaus, “and I don’t care to consider your retiring. I know perfectly well I couldn’t replace you in your present office. The younger servants are only servants now—they feel no family ties. But no matter how much I need you, and how much I think of you, you must see what a difficulty I’m in when complaints are made. People have criticised my house too much already. My brother’s death will make more talk. If I didn’t esteem you so highly, I’d send you off without a moment’s hesitation. Instead, I ask you, man to man, what you’d do if you were in my place.”

“Well, if I were in your place,” said Eteoneus, “I’d begin by stating the precise nature of the complaint Charitas made to you.”

“Her husband, not Charitas,” said Menelaus.

“Oh, I understand,” said the gate-keeper.

“He says you insulted his wife when she came to call on Helen. First, you wouldn’t let her in. Then you answered her questions rather sarcastically. For a climax, you told her she was the meanest woman you had ever met, and you thought you had met the extreme examples.”

“That’s nearer the truth than you’d expect from an angry woman,” said Eteoneus, “especially getting it from you, who had it from her husband, who knew nothing about it, except what she told him. She asked if Helen was at home. I said she wasn’t. That’s what she means by my not letting her in. She’s right, practically. Helen told me to say she was not at home, if anyone called, but she also told me to see that Charitas didn’t get across the threshold, and Charitas suspects something of the kind. She said Helen’s consistent absence was beginning to seem pointed. I was doing what I was commanded to do, Menelaus, and I did it all the more conscientiously because I’m no great admirer of your wife, and her orders give no pleasure.”

“If Helen didn’t wish to see Charitas,” said Menelaus, “you certainly should not be blamed. But why didn’t Helen want to see her—did she give a reason?”

“Yes,” said Eteoneus, “she said she couldn’t bear to discuss the death of your brother, and her sister’s part in it, with curious neighbours, and she was sure Charitas would call promptly as soon as the rumour spread.”

“H’m!” said Menelaus. “Her feelings of reticence do her credit. She seems to know Charitas.”

“She knows her sex. I doubt if she’d see Charitas, anyway,” said Eteoneus. “My opinion is, she looks on the murder as the most plausible excuse she’s had in a long time for keeping Charitas out. She has given me the same orders before, with other reasons. This one’s by far the best.”