“I don’t know whether he will or not, but I can ask him. I’d rather have it from you, but since the servants are whispering things about me, and since you won’t share the information you have, I refuse to remain in the dark.”

“Helen, I see I’ve made too much of a small matter. I’ll tell you the little there is to tell. On my return, Eteoneus asked me just what the attitude of the servants should be to you. They were surprised, he said, that you came back at all, and still more that you were here again as though—well, as though you had never been away. They were prepared, on my return, to cheer my lonely life, he said, but they didn’t know how to meet a situation in which there seemed to be no loneliness, and no need for cheering up. They felt, he said,—”

“When was it you stopped him—prevented him from going on?” said Helen. “That’s quite a speech already.”

“He made it against my will, and rather piece-meal,” said Menelaus. “I kept bringing him back to the subject, but he would digress, and—”

“What was the subject you kept bringing him back to?” said Helen.

“Why, he came in to talk about Hermione,” said Menelaus.

“What?”

“About Hermione and Orestes,” said Menelaus. “He was worried over their intimacy.”

“I can’t believe my ears,” said Helen. “You, who never discuss your wife with the servants, you only discuss your daughter with them—your daughter and her love-affairs! There’s a distinction, I suppose, but I can’t see it. Menelaus, I had no idea you had lost your fineness of feeling! You had it once—what has happened to you? And what will become of us all? At your age, if you begin developing such weaknesses, you will soon deteriorate quite beyond rescue, and your influence on Hermione will be most unfortunate. There’s no cure for vulgarity.”