“I was disappointed,” said Helen. “No, I didn’t want to die, but I did hope to know at least the terrors of life—and then your father became humane, as you perhaps think, and I knew there was nothing for it but years even less eventful than before, old age creeping up on our dull hearts—unless I could find a vital happiness in guiding you to a real life. I’ve said enough, and there’s no use repeating it, but if you had my passion for living, all the greater because it has been thwarted, you’d take Pyrrhus, reckless and brutal as he seems, instead of that cautious and safe cousin of yours.”

“You would, but I wouldn’t, and I won’t,” said Hermione. “It isn’t simply the killing. He has taken women home as slaves, and he has the old-fashioned idea of a hero’s rights over the women he captures. They say Agamemnon brought Cassandra home, and you told me yourself you feared Clytemnestra would be jealous. Of course she would, though I’m sure Cassandra means nothing to my uncle. Orestes is sure she doesn’t. But Pyrrhus is living with Andromache, Hector’s widow, and probably with the other women he acquired at Troy. That’s the kind of hero he is, and I say he’s a brute and out of date. Orestes sees these things as I do; I fancy most people of our age feel the same way. I didn’t realise how antiquated some of your notions are, mother, nor how conventional, until you began to urge Pyrrhus on me. I can just fancy myself as a further edition to his large herd—and my children playing cheerfully some day with Andromache’s!”