“I don’t see that at all,” said Eteoneus. “As far as I’ve been able to observe, the women like the men and all their ways; they like men to be brutes; they help to make them so. When a woman tells me she has a hard lot, I say, ‘Haven’t you, though!’ or something like that, and we’re both satisfied. It’s a fiction.”

“You don’t mean it’s a fiction that Pyrrhus treated Polyxena badly when he sacrificed her on his father’s tomb?”

“No worse than he treated the men he killed in the sack of Troy.”

“But they could defend themselves!”

“So could she.”

“Women are defenceless before men,” said Hermione.

“Are they!” said Eteoneus. “Clytemnestra!”

“That’s a special case, and it’s not what I’m talking about,” said Hermione.

“It’s the most recent case,” said Eteoneus, “and it’s not without precedent. All women are trouble-makers.”

“I wonder if Andromache thinks so,” said Hermione. “Pyrrhus carried her home with him, his slave, and the woman who had been Hector’s wife was forced to put up with the brutal caresses of that murderer. They say she’s going to have a child.”

“Does Andromache say his caresses are brutal?” asked Eteoneus. “If that’s an important question with you, you ought to ask her. You really should not talk about him until you have made inquiries. How do you know she doesn’t like him? You say you don’t want to marry Pyrrhus because he has treated Andromache badly. You don’t seem to know much of women, Hermione, and I dare say you are as ignorant of men. The real reason why you shouldn’t marry Pyrrhus is that Andromache would be jealous of you; she would probably treat you as Clytemnestra did Cassandra.”

“You don’t know any more about Andromache than I do,” said Hermione, “but assuming that you are right, I repeat what I said, that women in general have a hard time, and that men treat us so badly we lose our respect for them.”

“It can’t be done,” said Eteoneus. “You can’t treat a woman so badly as to lose her respect—that is, provided you still show some sort of interest in her.”

“Then I suppose you think a woman is happy, perhaps even deeply complimented, if one of your precious sex makes love to her, and betrays her, and deserts her. That sort of thing composes the tragic story of many women, no matter how you men choose to shut your eyes to it.”