“If I wished to prevent you,” she said, “I’d simply ask the men not to do it. I’d explain your temporary insanity. I’d remind them that even when you are yourself you have little respect for the proprieties—as when you cut short those sacrifices at Troy. The men still talk about that sojourn on the island and in Egypt. But I should not try to prevent this madness, if you were determined upon it; you are your own master, and I should let you go to your fate.”

“Now see here, Helen,” said Menelaus, “what will you do with Adraste if she stays? She won’t be of any possible use to you, with a baby to look after, and there’s no future for her when the child grows up.”

“She’ll be a companion always—she’s one of the best, and I like children,” said Helen. “She’ll be a daughter in the house when Hermione marries and leaves us.”

“Hermione isn’t going to marry very soon,” said Menelaus. “She won’t have Pyrrhus, and I won’t have Orestes.”

“But Hermione will, I think,” said Helen. “She’s going to marry Orestes. Didn’t you know that?”

“I didn’t and I don’t,” said Menelaus.

“Well, she is,” said Helen, “and you might as well make up your mind to it. I don’t want it any more than you do, but we can’t stop it. I found that out talking to her. That’s why I gave up hope of Pyrrhus. You opposed me, but you would have come round in time. Hermione’s state of mind made it impossible.”

“She shan’t marry Orestes! I’ve forbidden it!”

“You’ve done all you could,” said Helen, “and she will now do what she likes. Don’t worry about having to negotiate with Clytemnestra; I’m sure Hermione will tell us some day they’re already married—or she’ll tell me I’m to be a grandmother. I shan’t ask you to throw her out of the house.”

“Helen, I’d like to meet you half-way,” said Menelaus. “You were right about Orestes, when I still believed in him. I’ll join you in preventing his marriage to Hermione if you’ll arrange with me to get Adraste off somewhere to avoid talk. People like your neighbour Charitas—”