“You were about to speak of Orestes,” said Menelaus.

“I was,” said Eteoneus. “When you went away, you told me to look after the house with peculiar vigilance, since your strongest men were with you, and your daughter Hermione remained here, with considerable treasure still in the vaults. Then Orestes appeared. Perhaps I should have asked him in, like any other stranger, and found out his errand afterward, but in your absence I couldn’t take the risk. I kept him out until he would say who he was. He may tell you of his displeasure.”

“If there’s one thing I dislike,” said Menelaus, “it’s a family quarrel. I hope you didn’t come to words?”

“I fear we did,” said Eteoneus. “He wanted to know what had come over this house, that all virtue, even the most elementary, had deserted it. He suggested, as I recall, that the stench of our manners must sicken the gods. He went into some detail which I shan’t repeat; in outline, he noticed that having begun with a comparatively excusable slip, such as the infidelity of your wife, we had sunk at once to a point where we were no longer hospitable. I assured him that with us, as with other civilized people, nothing was more sacred than the rights of a guest, but that recently we had become interested in the rights of the host, also, and that since these had been ignored once in this house, we were a little nervous about good-looking and anonymous young men; in these times we felt that unusual caution on our part should not be misinterpreted.”

“I see nothing in that speech to insult him,” said Menelaus.

“Well,” replied the gate-keeper, “that isn’t all I said. When he made that remark about your wife, I felt that loyalty to the house compelled me to say something. I inquired after his mother’s health.”

“That’s sometimes done,” said Menelaus, “even among the polite.”

“I mean,” said the gate-keeper, “I asked him whether it wasn’t more delicate to leave your husband’s roof before you betrayed him, than to be false by his own fireside while he happened to be absent. Orestes got the point—that’s why he was angry.”

“If Orestes understood you,” said Menelaus, “it’s more than I do.”

“I suppose you haven’t heard,” said Eteoneus, “but all Sparta knows the scandal. Your sister-in-law Clytemnestra—your double sister-in-law, I might say, your wife’s sister and your brother’s wife—has been living with Ægisthus ever since Agamemnon went to Troy. It’s hardly worth while for him to come back.”

“There! I never liked her!” exclaimed Menelaus. “I’m shocked but not surprised, except for the man. Ægisthus will regret his daring. My brother will come back. He may not be wanted, but he will return all the more surely for that. He has had considerable practice recently in dealing with men who steal other people’s wives.”

“What Sparta is curious about,” said the gate-keeper, “is whether he has had enough practice in dealing with Clytemnestra. She’s a formidable woman, even in her innocent moments, and she’s making no secret of her present way of life. She thinks she is justified by something Agamemnon did. Of course she doesn’t doubt, any more than you do, that he’ll return. It’s thought she has a welcome waiting.”