“If you mean he didn’t do it, you’re wrong,” said Eteoneus. “He killed her. It was one filial duty against another, and he took vengeance all round. He knows you won’t like it—nobody seems to approve. That’s why he’s sensitive about coming here.”

“He can never come here,” said Menelaus. “My wife knew how difficult it would be to meet the murderess of my brother; certainly she will never be asked to receive in our own house the son who killed her sister. That marriage is settled once for all. I take it your special invitation is withdrawn, Helen.”

“For the time only,” said Helen. “I’m sorry for Orestes. Whatever emotions I have besides, I’m chiefly sorry for a serious and stupid boy who could do such a thing by way of being dutiful. He is a lost soul, Menelaus, but I don’t want him to be more lost than necessary. Imagine how he will feel when he realises what he has done! Perhaps we ought to send for him now, rather than later. Yes, send for him, Menelaus!”

“I can’t follow that,” said Menelaus.

“Nor I,” said Eteoneus. “These new ideas go too far. Killing Ægisthus was only proper, of course, but when it comes to killing your mother—I’ll not open the gate to a man who has killed his own mother.”

“I don’t want him to come,” said Hermione. “It would be too terrible with the whole household around. I think I had better see him first alone.”

“You’ll see him nowhere,” said her father. “For this family Orestes does not exist … If it were not too late! … When this horror has died out a little, we’ll send for Pyrrhus again, and if he’s what your mother thinks, you may marry him. He may have a fault or two, but we can no longer be fastidious. I’d rather like an alliance with Pyrrhus, to give us a standing again before the world.”

“I was going to tell you, as another piece of news,” said Eteoneus, “that Pyrrhus will probably be here in a day or two. He started more quickly than we expected, and I told the man we sent, according to your instructions, not to turn him back if he had got more than halfway.”

“I think I’ll retire, if you don’t mind,” said Hermione. “My head begins to ache terribly, and I must be alone for a while.”

“Before you go,” said Eteoneus, “there’s something else I ought to tell you about Orestes. I don’t greatly admire the young man, but it is only fair to say that perhaps he didn’t do the actual killing—perhaps. There’s a story that he preferred not to kill his mother, but merely stood by and watched it done.”

“Oh, I hope that’s true!”