“If you’d been in the room when Eteoneus was talking,” said Menelaus, “you’d know well enough that I wasn’t gossiping about my family—not about my wife nor my daughter—nor about my brother nor his wife, nor his son. I speak so particularly in order that I may not be accused of evasion. Eteoneus doesn’t like Orestes, and he came to poison my mind against the boy. Orestes involved Hermione, of course, and the gate-keeper told me the young people had met constantly during our absence. I told him they had been promised to each other long ago, that I would place the fullest confidence in my daughter’s discretion, and that he himself was an impertinent old meddler. I sent him back to his post, but he’s a stubborn fellow and it took some time to get rid of him. He kept talking all the while, trying to draw something out of me with reference to you. I refused to listen to him, but before I got him out he had made his point of view clear enough. What I told you was a summary, more concise than his remarks. He feels that the world is departing from the traditions he grew up in; what he really came for was to be comforted against the consciousness and the consequences of growing old.”

“He’s probably right about Orestes,” said Helen, “and the world is changing. I’m sorry it is. Conservative ways, conventional manners, are best in the end. It may be necessary to depart from them, but those who depart must pay a big price, I should think. That’s why I regret to see you give up your old courtliness, Menelaus. It was one of your happiest accomplishments, and though rougher, more downright behaviour is coming into fashion, it will never sit so well on your nature, in my opinion. I noticed the change immediately that night in Troy, when we met again. I admired Agamemnon for staying and making those sacrifices. There was something about it—I don’t know—a tone, you might say; it indicated the hold his breeding had on him. I was sorry you didn’t stay and do the same thing. Our return has not been so happy as a home-coming should be. You began it in the wrong mood.”

“I can’t see that at all,” said Menelaus. “Our troubles are in our own character, I think. Sacrifices are very well; I sacrificed with Agamemnon for a whole day. But if you overdo that sort of thing you cease to be religious, or conventional, and become fanatic, or even foolish. The war was finished; our business, as I saw it, was to take up our interrupted lives again. I don’t know what made Agamemnon do what he did; he usually is no stickler for rites and ceremonies. I teased him a bit about Clytemnestra—suggested he was afraid to go home and face her. Considering what really has happened in his house, I wish I hadn’t said that. He’ll recall it when he arrives, and perhaps he’ll imagine I’m on his wife’s side in this bad business. But he isn’t back yet—notice that, Helen. We came in fairly good time, allowing for delays of the wind, but he isn’t heard of. If our attitude toward the sacrifices counted for or against us, he ought to have got home first, don’t you think?”