“Didn’t I what? Oh, you think I invented it, for my own uses! Think so, if you like! But I told the truth.”

“Menelaus,” said Eteoneus, “I expected to find you alone. I beg your pardon.”

“Perhaps I’m in the way, Menelaus,” said Helen. “I’ll return when you are at liberty again.”

“See here, Eteoneus, what do you mean by saying you expected to find me alone? What has come over you? Do you take it amiss that I’m talking in my own house to my own wife?”

“I presume to take nothing amiss with you, Menelaus,” said Eteoneus, “no matter what’s in the back of my thoughts.”

“That won’t do, Eteoneus,” said Menelaus. “I told you the other day you’d have to keep a civil tongue when you spoke of any member of my household. You understood me clearly, I believe?”

“No, Menelaus,” said the gate-keeper, “I heard the words clearly, but I didn’t understand you … But we’d better not go on, with my lady here.”

“Eteoneus,” said Helen, “I shall be glad to hear whatever you wish to say. Say it as if I were not present—unless it is some private business of my husband’s, which I ought not to know. You are an old friend, and I don’t feel that I’ve seen much of you since my return. How have you been?”

“My health has been excellent,” said Eteoneus, “but I have a troubled mind.”

“I’m sorry for that,” said Helen. “Such faithful service as you have given, ought to leave you, at your years, with a quiet conscience.”

“Oh, nothing the matter with my conscience. It’s not my own wrong-doing I have to worry about.”

“Eteoneus,” said Menelaus, “what brought you here? What do you wish with me?”

“One moment, Menelaus,” said Helen. “Do I understand that Eteoneus is troubled by the wrongs others have done?”

“That’s it exactly,” said Eteoneus.

“You mean, wrongs that people have done to you personally?” said Helen. “Of course I don’t want to seem prying into your affairs.”

“No offence at all,” said Eteoneus. “No, not wrongs done to me personally.”

“Well,” said Helen, “when you come to think of it, there are a great number of wrongs in the world done by others, to others than ourselves. What a passion for grief you must have, Eteoneus, to borrow all that trouble!”

“Eteoneus,” said Menelaus, “I insist on knowing what—”

“I beg your pardon, Menelaus,” said Helen. “I did not realise that my talking to Eteoneus was annoying you.”

“Not at all,” said Menelaus. “Talk to him as much as you like—at another time. Now I wish to hear his errand.”

“It’s merely a bit of news,” said Eteoneus, “but there was a time when you would have been glad to hear it.”

“You don’t mean that Pyrrhus has declined the invitation?”