“May I come in?” said Eteoneus. “I don’t wish to interrupt, but I notice that the whole family is here, and I prefer to tell the news to you all at once.”

“News about what?” said Menelaus.

“About Orestes.”

They looked at him and were silent. He waited for a question to help him out, but at last he had to go on by himself.

“It’s partly good news, and partly bad. In the first place, the young man has avenged his father’s death. He has killed Ægisthus.”

“That’s good!” said Menelaus. “I thought Orestes could manage it alone, and there’s a special satisfaction when the son can take care of his father’s memory; it shows the line hasn’t run out. That’s very good news, Eteoneus.”

“You usually give us the outline first and the details afterwards,” said Helen. “May we hear the details?”

“The messenger says that Ægisthus has been growing nervous over a possible attempt at revenge; he couldn’t learn where Orestes was, and he lived under the unpleasant possibility of a knife in his ribs at any moment. Clytemnestra stood the strain very well, or perhaps she didn’t feel it, but at last Ægisthus rather went to pieces. He took to religion. Every morning he would steal out to the domestic altar—you remember the place, Menelaus, where your brother smoothed off a few rocks for the family devotions; and there Ægisthus would sacrifice a small animal, and ask for protection till the next dawn. Clytemnestra never joined him, the messenger says—she put no trust in sacrifices. So the unhappy king used to slip out there alone, before his morning’s duties began. Orestes waited round the place in hiding till he had learned about this habit of his enemy. Then one morning when Ægisthus was watching the flame intently, Orestes stole up and cut his head off. That’s all there was to it.”

“I knew he would show his ability,” said Menelaus. “This puts him rather high in my esteem. If it weren’t for his mother—”

“Can’t you overlook his mother,” said Hermione, “now that he has behaved so well? You said that this test would show his character. Now be just, father, and admit I have chosen a good husband.”

“If this qualifies for the duties of a husband, why, he qualifies,” said Helen. “But he won’t be avenging murders all his life, and I hope you will marry him, if you do, for other reasons than his adroitness in killing Ægisthus. Where is he, Eteoneus? I’d like to meet Orestes.”

“He’s on the way, I understand,” said Eteoneus, “but I doubt if he calls unless you give him a special invitation. He thinks the family doesn’t approve of him, with the exception of your daughter, and just now he’s—well, rather tense and sensitive.”