“We shan’t quarrel over your opinion, Orestes,” said Helen. “It is essentially my own opinion. It’s what I expected you to think of me. Where I have been, disaster has always followed. If it had not been for me, your father would not have offered up his own child, my sister would not have slain her husband, you would not have killed your mother, nor Pyrrhus—and you wouldn’t have married Hermione.”

“Oh, I should have married Hermione anyway! That’s not a catastrophe, and you are in no way responsible for it. I married Hermione because I love her.”

“That is usually thought to be a good reason,” said Helen. “I dare say your union was fore-ordained—you would have married her no matter how admirable her mother was.”

“Yes—no! I mean, when you love as Hermione and I do, you cannot help yourself.”

“You never met Paris, did you? Of course not. He felt the same way about it.”

“And you didn’t agree with him, I suppose?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then you’ve changed your mind since?”

“No, I still believe it. That’s why I’m glad to know it was love that drove you into matrimony. I was afraid it might have been Hermione. She made no secret of her intention to have you.”

“Oh, you must not do her such an injustice! We—”

“What injustice have I done her?”

“You implied that she forced me to marry her.”

“Didn’t she? I thought you said you couldn’t help it? Was it her charm or yours that overwhelmed you?”

“Oh—in that sense.”

“Of course, I’m unfair,” Helen went on. “It was your charm that compelled her.”

“I don’t pretend to any charm,” said Orestes.

“Well, whatever it was, Paris found the same thing in me, and I found it in him. Isn’t it strange how love becomes our will! We couldn’t have done otherwise.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon! Such a theory would make your passion for that Trojan rascal as sacred as any other love!”

“I didn’t mention any theory,” said Helen. “I was citing a fact. You told me how you and Hermione felt; I told you how Paris and I felt. Why did you call him a rascal? You didn’t know him. Our love was decidedly like any other love; it seemed to us sacred. If you prefer, I’ll cite a parallel from Menelaus. When he married me he too, said he couldn’t have done otherwise. Now he thinks he could, and he wishes he had. But at the time he was right.”

“If you could not have done otherwise,” said Orestes, “you are logically not to blame for the miseries that followed. It’s an ingenious point of view, but I don’t think it will hold. Who is responsible for it all?”