“Yes,” said Menelaus. “I told her you wanted Pyrrhus for a son-in-law, and you suggested having him here for a visit.”

“No doubt the report had a good deal of your point of view in it,” said Helen. “It’s a familiar form of cooperation. Well, what do you think of the idea, Hermione?”

“Hermione agrees with me,” said Menelaus, “that it’s not safe to ask Pyrrhus here.”

“Not safe?” said Helen. “Who’s going to hurt him? Guests are always safe.”

“But the host isn’t, nowadays,” said Menelaus. “We’ve made up our minds to practice some of your frankness. Hermione thinks with me that she and I wouldn’t get much out of a visit from Pyrrhus. With you here, she wouldn’t see much of him. He’d be charmed, of course—so deeply enchanted that he mightn’t notice there was such a person as your daughter—or your husband. It won’t do, Helen.”

“Mother, that isn’t quite what I said. I—”

“I’m sure it isn’t, daughter,” said Helen. “Go on, Menelaus.”

“There’s nothing more,” said Menelaus.

“There must be,” said Helen. “No man can speak so to his wife, and before his daughter, without a great deal more. This is the way you insulted me the last time we discussed this subject. I told you then I would not stay with you if you repeated the offence. Now I shall go. I’m sorry, Hermione, to have you a witness of such unhappy clashes between your parents, but since your father is determined to have it so, perhaps it’s as well you should know this episode at first hand. I asked your father to invite Pyrrhus here so that you might have a wider experience of society before you finally chose your husband. Your father accused me of having been in love with Achilles. I reminded Menelaus that I had never seen Achilles, who now is in his grave, but I said I surely would have loved him had I met him, for he was the greatest man of his time, and the most winning. We needs must love the highest when we see it, and if we don’t wish to love it, we had better not see it. Pyrrhus is like his father, in my opinion; so far as I know, he’s the finest man now in the world. Perhaps it would be kindness to you not to bring him here, if only we could be sure you never would see him, by chance, elsewhere; for you and Orestes are apparently content with each other. But some day you will see Pyrrhus, almost certainly, and what then, if you are bound already to another man? I wanted to say this to you, from myheart, and urge you to welcome Pyrrhus on this visit. I was going to add that though I think him superior to Orestes, I haven’t seen Orestes, and I may be wrong. When you have met Pyrrhus you may think him less charming than I do. Whether the difference is the fault of my taste or the fault of yours, the incident in any event will be closed. After that, choose whom you like. But, Hermione, don’t refuse to see Pyrrhus and then marry Orestes! Your faith in your husband will be poisoned from the beginning. You will remember you were unwilling to measure him alongside another man; you will wonder what would have happened if you had met Pyrrhus. At first you will pray you may never meet him, then you will wish you still might, and finally you’ll meet him, of course. That’s what I intended to say. But you and your father must arrange these matters now as you think best. I am leaving this house forever. It was understood between Menelaus and myself that if he spoke to me again in those terms I was to go.”