“On the whole, isn’t that a weight off your mind?” said Menelaus. “The way you talked, I thought she was eloping this afternoon. My own idea of Hermione is that she’s steady and sensible and trustworthy. She’s a great comfort to me. Why don’t you let her live her life, as you’ve lived yours?”

“Menelaus, can’t you, can’t you see? That’s precisely what I want for her, but it’s what she’ll never do. If Hermione had my temperament, I shouldn’t worry about her; I’d be sure she would live her own life, as you say, and whether or not she made mistakes, she wouldn’t miss anything. But she’s full of convictions and prejudices—what the world expects of her, as though the world cared—what she owes to herself, as though life were collecting a debt—and how much does she know about the world, or about herself? All her ideas are shallow and sentimental, purely formal; she has picked a scheme of things out of this little neighbourhood, and she thinks she knows the universe. Poor child! Her heart is asleep. When she wakes up some day she may be terrible. Clytemnestra as a girl was just that way—positive, silly and sentimental. She married Agamemnon largely because you married me; the double alliance seemed to her romantic. I’m sure Hermione thinks there’s something touching and pretty in marrying her cousin and keeping the family together. I don’t call her prudent—she is blind. If she weren’t so like her aunt, I shouldn’t worry. A girl without any latent force of character might as well marry now as she wishes, find out her mistake at leisure, and take refuge in a comfortable, self-stifling career, like Charitas; the world’s full of them, and at least they’re safe. But if I know my child she’ll find out her mistake by discovering a great passion, and she won’t know what to do with it—she’ll simply be violent. It’s bad for that type when the love of life gets hold of them and they think it’s too late.”

“I’m not sure I understand what the love of life is,” said Menelaus. “It’s a phrase you often use, and like other phrases of yours it has a critical edge which seems to cut my way. I fancy you refer to something you think is lacking in me. Yet I really believe I love life as much as I ought to; I’ve never wanted to die. I’ve loved my people, and my home. I’ve loved you, Helen, in my poor way, for some time. I’m very fond of Hermione. Is there anything I’ve overlooked?”

“In your own way you have loved me, I think,” said Helen. “We’ll agree it’s more than I deserved. But I don’t thank you for it, Menelaus. Love is something that happens to us, we can’t help ourselves, and the real passion isn’t a compliment or a gift, and it isn’t a sign of generosity in the lover. Your kindness and your patience when you haven’t understood me—that’s what I can thank you for. We’re not farther apart than most husbands and wives, I dare say, and when we get to the end of our days we’ll remember chiefly how long we have been companions. But, oh, Menelaus, I wanted Hermione to know the real thing! To have the passion and the heart-ache when she is young, when her body and her mind are undulled, when the ecstasy is in the senses and yet seems to be in the soul! And then, when the body flags and grows old, to find the ecstasy indeed in the spirit after all, their two souls melted in that fiery happiness! Or if she missed that joy, at least to come so near it that she’d know it could be, and she’d always think of it with yearning and measure life by it. It must happen to some people, Menelaus, and I wanted it for her. Those who have it never grow old, I think, never lose courage, nor lose interest; they may suffer, but their world remains beautiful. They can let their heart go—it won’t be chilled or dwarfed or warped.”