“There, Hermione, didn’t I tell you?” said Helen. “You do begin to understand me, Menelaus, and as time goes on, I know you better. You didn’t spare the woman you loved; you preserved me as an object of art!”

“I don’t know why I spared you, but whatever the reason, you didn’t deserve the kindness, and you don’t appreciate it. As soon as my back is turned, you go plotting and planning to get your own way. I can’t trust you. Didn’t we make a bargain to have Pyrrhus here and let Hermione choose for herself? Now at the very moment when you know I’m distracted with worry, you get the child off to one side and try to settle the matter without me. Fortunately, she isn’t likely to be persuaded by the kind of argument I heard. Very enticing prospect you held out, of a husband who might go in for polygamy at any minute. Hermione, my child, you may take my word for it, your mother has the recipe for excitement, but not for security.”

“You missed the point, as usual,” said Helen. “What you heard was not an argument necessarily in favour of Pyrrhus, neither was I trying to plead for the young man behind your back. Everything I’ve said might be interpreted in his favour, though if you had come earlier you would have been convinced that Hermione interprets everything against him. But I was trying to tell her a few things she ought to know about life—things she is not likely to learn from you. I shall continue to share with her what little knowledge I have, whether you are present or not. You would have been welcome, of course, though I doubt if you would have been interested in what we were talking about. When I’ve said much the same things to you, a number of times, you have never paid attention. I’m not sure that Hermione has profited, either, from what I’ve told her.”

“If I may judge of the rest by what I heard,” said Menelaus, “you didn’t tell her anything she could profit by. The implication I got was your usual one, that you hoped she’d be happier than you’ve been; and since your directions for picking out a husband don’t correspond to any known portrait of me, I dare say you’ve made it fairly clear that you haven’t been happy—not so happy as you would have been with Achilles or Pyrrhus. Is that a fair way to talk about your husband to your daughter?—I ask you, Helen—if you have a sense of fairness—is that decent or just?”