“Don’t you worry about her, Helen?”

“No, indeed! I grieve that we have not known how to get on better with our own daughter, but she is perfectly safe. What could harm her? I rather think her resolution to manage her own affairs will do her good. She has wasted some time trying to manage mine. If she isn’t showing much filial respect for her father and me, on the other hand I’m not ready to argue that we deserve it. No, if this is the worst thing she does, I shall be content … Adraste, has Charitas come to see her grandson?”

“She certainly hasn’t, that old cat!”

“Speaking of filial respect! She’s your mother-in-law, you know, in spirit if not in fact. Why don’t you ask her to come?”

“I’d like to see myself! After the things she has said of me!”

“Exactly. Let her say them first, and then come. If I were you I’d ask her.”

“She wouldn’t come.”

“Ask her. She’ll say no. Tell her the boy waits to be seen, whenever she cares to look at him. She’ll come … And you might rescue Damastor that way.”

“There! You said I was lucky not to marry him, and now you suggest getting him back!”

“It’s a weakness in me, I admit. I think you would be quite perfect without him, but you don’t, and you would never forgive me for not telling you how to get round his indignant mother. That’s the way it’s done. Now do as you like. Notice I said ‘rescue’ him. We want back the Damastor who perhaps doesn’t yet exist. But he might … Anyway, Adraste, I’m glad it’s a boy. The girls do have the rough side, whenever there’s a choice.”

“Helen, do you think Hermione ought to marry Orestes?”

“My dear child, she’s going to marry Orestes.”

“But ought she to?”

“Do you mean, would I marry him? I’d drink poison just before the wedding. He’s almost all that I don’t like in human nature. He sees nothing good in life, but he consents to take charge of it.”

“Helen, if Hermione marries and has a child, will you go and see the child?”

“At once. I shan’t wait to be invited. If they don’t want me, they’ll have to shut the door in my face. Why not?”

“But Orestes—and your sister!”