Helen in Egypt

I

WHEN the second morning dawned the north wind had increased in strength, an ugly sea was running, and it was very cold. During the night the helmsman had been obliged to let the vessel fall off more and more, until she was very nearly running before the gale.

Paris conferred in low tones with the sailing-master. He was haggard with sleeplessness, excitement, and anxiety, and the motion of the vessel had affected him unpleasantly, but he was happy. If the worst should come, to drown with Helen seemed to him all a man could ask; in the meantime, however, he was grieved to the heart for her discomfort.

‘We can’t do it,’ he whispered to the master. ‘We can’t cross with the wind like this. These northers sometimes last for days. We had better get under the lee of Crete and lie there till it blows out.’

The master pointed over his shoulder to windward. ‘Do you see that gray cloud on the sky line to the northwest?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is Crete. We passed it in the night.’

‘Good god!' said Paris. ‘Then we are in the open Egyptian sea.’

‘Yes.’

‘There is nothing to do, then, but run before it till we run under.’

‘We shall not run under,’ said the master. ‘It will run over us.’

‘ Suppose we float and the wind holds, how soon shall we see the coast?’

‘I ‘ve no idea. I’ve never been down here. Some say it is five days’ sail from Phæstus, and some say it is twenty.’

Paris considered.

‘Food?’ he asked.

‘For about five days, spreading if rather thin,’ said the master.

Two men squatted at the tiller, one looking forward toward the scrap of sail and the horizon ahead, the other glancing back at the windward sky and the snarling seas. Every hour they were relieved from the crew, who sat amidships at their oars, at the master’s signal helping the helmsmen to dodge the more obvious perils.

The driest part of the boat was forward, under the little triangle of deck. Here lay Helen, couched among the more perishable of the supplies. Soft skins and rugs were strewn beneath her, and during the first hours of the voyage her two handmaidens had taken turns in supporting her on their knees. But as the sea rose they had fallen sick, and Helen had turned them out into the open waist among the sailors.

‘You will be better in the air,’ she said; and they, adoring her, murmured, ‘How kind madam always is,’ and crept wretchedly forth to lie in the wash of the bilge, where the sailors laughed at them.

Helen knew as well as anyone that it is only plain women who are seasick, but she had overlooked this fact, and had chosen on other principles the least lovely of her maidens to be her companions. She had herself slept soundly and she woke only when the sun was high. The strong air of the sea had brought color into her ivory cheeks and frizzed her hair so that it stood out about her face in a soft cloud. Nor did she feel any fear of the wind or the sea. Far better than Paris and better than the master himself she was able to appreciate the buoyancy of the vessel. Moreover, as she lay still for a while, unready to announce herself as awake, her mind, consciously busy with the emotional aspects of her situation, formed on a lower plane of attention the judgment that the gale had reached its height and would presently moderate. And to her adventurous temper the fact that they were scudding heaven knew whither through uncharted seas — a fact which appalled Paris and the master —was in itself a pleasant excitement.

But her enjoyment of the adventure was spoiled by the intrusion of another set of images. Vaguely before she fell asleep, clearly after she waked, she had seen that the affair was taking a different shape from what she had pictured to herself. Not for a moment had she meant to participate in a mere vulgar elopement. She felt nothing in common with the great lovers of history. Io was a poor creature, a seducer’s victim, driven to flight to hide her shame. Europa was a child, dazzled, amused, overwhelmed. Medea was a splendid woman, no doubt, gifted and strong, but she had given all for love as simply as either of the others. Helen saw her own case as essentially different from any of these. She was a princess, passing from one throne to another. Paris had brought assurance from Priam his father that she should come to him as his daughter; that Troy would receive her as one who conferred honor; that the Trojans would hold and defend her, though all Europe should come to carry her back. She had pictured a short passage over summer seas, the sailors singing at their garlanded oars, Menelaus and his insufferable dullness left behind forever, and a new world of devotion open before her. All was to be done with dignity.

She had brought with her a quantity of comforts and valuables from Menelaus’s house, having no mind to appear to her new admirers as a blowzy runaway. Naturally she had been obliged to leave secretly, a detail repugnant to her sense of decorum, but many a great captain had found it necessary to do the same. She had left a message for Menelaus, putting the affair in its true light as an international event. To his slow mind the idea might be hard to grasp, but she felt sure Agamemnon would explain it to him. Of course Paris could not be left out altogether. His dignity was essential to her own and she had given him full weight; but she had felt that Menelaus would need no underlining of this passage. Paris was incredibly handsome and had a tact with women which Menelaus could appreciate, though there was nothing corresponding to it in his own processes. Paris had seemed to her in every way fitted for his part, a fairy prince, deeply in love, chivalrous, brave, regretting the base aspects of his adventure, and eager to fight for his lady, once she was safely his.

But she no longer saw Paris quite like this. At dusk last night she had closed her eyes against the spectacle of a wilted Paris, trying to be sick to windward. The sailing-master, with an oath, had lifted him bodily to the lee rail. . . .

A pair of blankets had been hung from the deck to screen Helen’s bower, but one of them had blown away in the night. The sailors, seated on thwarts through the boat, strove to be discreet, but often, peeping through her eyelashes, she saw bright dark eyes peering at her. She turned over to the protection of the remaining curtain, thus coming into contact with the packets stored at each side of the covered space. Some of the packets contained bread, others salt fish, and others cheese. The aroma of each was distinctly perceptible. Helen had no contempt for any of these things — indeed, she meant to consume a portion of each for her breakfast. But that she, a queen, the most beautiful woman in the world, the daughter of Zeus, the favorite of Aphrodite, a cause of war to kings, should have to sleep where she could smell them touched her heart with a chilling sense of failure.

Meantime a new embarrassment opened before Paris. The seamen were beginning to grumble for their breakfast, and Helen was lying on the stores. Her women waited the signal to rouse her, but Paris frowned at them and came himself to the ragged entrance of the sorry bower. Softly he spoke her name, and softly and sweetly she answered him. He stooped and looked under the deck, dreading to see the signs of suffering; but there she lay, glowing with such beauty as he had never yet seen her wear. Sweetly she smiled on him and he fell on his knees beside her. Never had he felt so keenly that she was a queen and he, though a prince, a shepherd. All night he had been upheld by the thought of a rapturous morning kiss behind the kindly curtains, but now he dared not kiss her. The wretched surroundings to which his love had brought her obliged him to an increased respect. He was rather proud of feeling thus, and it did not occur to him that Helen herself had a hand in it.

II

On the fourth day the wind hauled to the west and abated, so that on the fifth they made a propitious landfall on the coast of Egypt. Feeling his way along, the skipper finally beached his boat safely within that mouth of the Nile called the Canopic, near the Salt Pans. On a little eminence thereby stood a temple of Herakles, and thither the whole company bent their steps, to give thanks for their escape. The seamen rudely pressed ahead. Helen, veiled, walked gravely with an arm resting on the shoulders of each of her maidens. Paris came last, carrying the more precious of her parcels.

When they reached the temple, twenty minutes later than the men, they found trouble. The master and the seamen stood in a grinning row beneath the porch of the temple, and on the steps before them stood a smiling priest, who rubbed his hands and welcomed the late-comers.

‘Madam and sir,’ said he, ‘surely the gods have a special care of you, since you have come safely through a storm that has brought more than one wreck upon our shores. Enter and give thanks, and let us minister to your wants.’

The sailors made no offer to stand aside to let them pass, and Paris raised his hand in anger.

‘Slaves,’ he said, ‘make way!’ And as he glanced along the row of insolent faces he noted that each man had the sign of the swastika drawn in vermilion on his forehead.

‘I must explain,’ said the priest, still smiling and rubbing his hands. He was clean-shaven, even his poll being razed, and he was clad in white linen from head to foot and shod with papyrus sandals. Paris thought he had never seen anyone look so clean — or so repulsive.

‘Noble sir,’ said the priest, ‘it is my duty to declare to every visitor of this temple, before permitting him to enter, that it is a sanctuary. If a slave enters and gives himself up to the god and receives the sacred sign upon his brow, he thenceforth has no mortal master. As my vows require, I made this announcement to this ship’s company, and one and all they closed with the offer. From their anxiety to have the marking finished before your arrival, I infer that you are their former master. I fear this may inconvenience you.’

Paris sprang up the steps and drew his sword, in such a red fog of anger that his hand was stayed a moment because he could not instantly decide whether to slay the priest first or go straight for the captain and the sailors. But in this second the priest stepped before him and held up a warning hand. He had stopped smiling, and his voice was no longer honeyed, but harsh.

‘The gods alone can help you, my poor boy,’ he said. ‘I fear you have already sinned against them. Do not offend them further. And I may remark, on a lower plane, that I have fifty armed men within call.’

Paris replaced his sword. Love was teaching him many things; for Helen’s safety he renounced the beau geste.

‘Holy one,’ he said, ‘what is this country, and who is the king of it? In the name of Zeus, who protects strangers, I ask to be taken before him.’

‘This is the land of Egypt,’ said the priest. ‘It is ruled by King Proteus, who lives in Memphis, two days’ journey up the river. The warden of this port is Thonis, and it is my duty at once to take you before him with these sailors and this lady— doubtless I should not exaggerate if I said this fair lady,’ and he saluted Helen with a bow of ironic reverence.

Paris, watching him with silent fury, saw his face change as he returned to the upright position, and, looking to see what had caused this change, he saw that Helen had raised her veil and was gazing into the eyes of the priest. Her expression was one of faint and almost amused interest, and she seemed to be looking from a long way off.

The avidity that appeared in the priest’s eyes and mouth was strange for so holy a man. It caused Paris to realize that going about the world in charge of the most beautiful woman in it would not be restful.

The priest bowed again. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘ forgive my levity and let me offer you the security of this shrine. Will you not take sanctuary here while this unhappy young man goes to give an account of his misdeeds?’

Gently Helen answered, still faintly amused: —

‘Why should I take sanctuary? I am a free woman, guided by the gods in what I do. My companion is a prince in his own country and my trusted friend. I need no sanctuary, unless we have fallen upon a barbarous land where strangers are illtreated.’

Paris took Helen’s hand. ‘Thank you, dearest,’ he said. ‘Let us go. Thonis may be more sympathetic with us than this shaven celibate.’

Helen softly pressed his hand. ‘Paris,’ she murmured, ‘it may be, after all, that we have done wrong. If we have, we cannot hope for sympathy.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ cried Paris, ‘don’t lose courage now! We went over that a hundred times. Come, we are together for better or for worse. We will tell our story frankly to this warden and win through to happiness or die together.'

Helen gazed at him with lovely, inscrutable eyes. Her look made his head swim with passion and admiration, and yet it sent a pang of terror through him. Her eyes were like the eyes of a goddess.

‘Come,’ she said, and they went forward, the priest showing them the way.

Paris, upborne by his great love, was strong in his belief that love justifies all. This woman was made for him. The gods in heaven had brought it to pass that she was his. Could anyone, god or man, condemn this marvel of the world to a lifetime with Menelaus? Paris was humble; he knew he was himself unworthy of her, but at least he loved her. Menelaus, honest, tiresome man, displayed the traits of the husband of all time. Perseus saving Andromeda could not have glowed with purer chivalry than did Paris in rescuing Helen from Menelaus. But far down beneath all this heady excitement a troublesome thought worked steadily, desperately, like an entombed miner. Why had he permitted Helen to bring away so many of Menelaus’s goods? It was natural that she should want to come not quite empty-handed to her new kinsmen. He had understood the feeling, and in fact admired her for it. Now that he saw an ugly side to the act he blamed himself, not her. But on the main issue his conscience was good, and he longed to tell his story to this barbarian official, and indeed to all the world.

The warden of the port received them in a fine hall supported by many columns, quite different from Paris’s notion of a barbarian’s house. The man himself was gross, fat, and dusky, and strangely dressed. He was playing at draughts with his clerk, and black men fanned them. Paris sought Helen’s eye for a silent exchange of impressions, but she stood a little behind him, sheltered by her maidens, and covertly studying the warden’s face.

The priest told his story. The seamen had come to him declaring their master had committed a great crime. He had seduced the wife of his host and carried her off, together with much treasure. The gods in their anger had nearly drowned them all and had driven them to the ends of the earth, whence they could hardly hope to get home again.

Impassively the warden listened; then he motioned to Paris that he should speak, and Paris stepped forward, glowing with good faith.

‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I am Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy. While I kept my father’s flocks on Mount Ida, Zeus himself — for what reason, who can say? — referred to me the dispute between the three greatest goddesses as to which is the most beautiful. As I am an honest man, Aphrodite fairly won the prize. In gratitude to me she promised me the fairest woman in the world for my wife: Helen, called the daughter of Tyndareus, King of Sparta, but in fact the child of Zeus. Thus, with the sanction of the gods and with my father’s approval, I went forth to win this lady. Doubtless it was by the good offices of Aphrodite that she loved me as I loved her. I am not worthy of her, — what mortal could be? — but we belong to each other by the will of the gods, and I will give my life to maintain her honor and her happiness.’

The warden listened to him quizzically and nudged his clerk. ‘Did you ever hear of all these kings and queens,’ he asked, ‘whose sons are shepherds and whose daughters are the children of somebody else?’ And both men laughed.

‘Prince,’ he said, addressing Paris, ‘this is all very pretty; but is it true, as these sailors say, that the lady happens to be the wife of another man, that he was your unsuspicious host, and that you have carried off, together with his wife, a considerable amount of his property?’

‘On the voyage to Sparta,’said Paris, ‘my ship with all my goods was lost on a sandbank. This lady brought with her the simplest comforts to supply the loss, and all will be returned fourfold to Menelaus when we reach Troy.’

Another thought struck the warden. ‘Let us see the lady,’ he said.

Slowly the handmaids stepped aside, and slowly Helen moved forward, her head humbly bowed, her hands crossed suppliant-wise on her breast.

‘Look up, look up, my dear,’ said the warden. ‘Nobody is going to hurt you.’

And Helen looked up. She shot at the warden the drollest glance of confession and avoidance, and the room was transformed by her smile, her fairness, and her look of youth. You would not have supposed she was more than sixteen.

‘Good god!’ said the warden. ‘Who could blame him! Lady, we mortals are truly the playthings of the gods. It is not for me to judge your strange case. I must send you to Memphis to the King, together with this rather simple-minded and, I fear, unworthy young man and these sailors.’ And he forthwith gave orders that they should be conveyed to the capital in a style befitting their rank.

III

As they journeyed up the great river, driven by a breeze that blew always from the north, Paris noted, it is true, the many novelties of the country — the trim little rice-fields, the black men working in them, the tall trees like bouquets of fern on long stems, and the great deadly lizards on the sandbanks; but the real activity of his mind was devoted to the consideration of their plight, and above all to the effort to understand Helen. Since they had landed she had given no sign that they were lovers. This grieved him, but he did not accuse her of a cooling love. They were in danger and they must be discreet. But with a sharper pang he felt that she was disappointed in him; he had drawn her into a scrape and was not man enough to get her out. Her talismanic beauty, not his sword, was their defense.

In the evening the boat was moored to the bank for the night. The river flowed past them, mighty as a sea and quiet as a pond. A great orange moon rose from behind the eastern hills, such a moon as was never seen in Troy or Greece.

On such a night a man like Paris could no more keep his emotions to himself than the honeysuckle can hold back its scent. He seated himself by Helen and murmured, ‘Dearest, tell me your thoughts.’

‘I like this country,’ said Helen. ‘I am glad we have come here.’

‘It becomes you,’said Paris. ‘I’ve been admiring you all day as you lay there more like a queen than a prisoner, served by these humble blacks, shaded from the sun with beautiful stuffs whose very name I do not know. Never will this great river — I salute him! — bear anything so lovely again.’

‘Do you know, Paris,’ said Helen, ‘I am sometimes sorry to hear you dwell forever on this beauty of mine. It seems as though I had nothing else. Is it all you see in me?’

This attack seemed to Paris so unfair and so uncalled for that he spoke with more bitterness than he knew he had. ‘I know I am a fool,’he said. ‘Perhaps you are getting tired of me altogether.'

‘Paris,’ said Helen, ‘are you turning against me?'

‘Good heavens!’ cried Paris. ‘Am I not your dog, your slave, your fool? Have n’t you made me feel every hour of the day since we came to this cursed land that you are of the race of the gods rather than a human woman and my lover? Don’t I know that when we appear before this leathercolored king he will only look at you once and acquit you of all wrong, while I bear the blame? Of course I am willing to bear the blame,’ added poor Paris hastily. ‘There is no blame; but if there were it would be mine. Only I cannot bear that you should separate yourself from me. You don’t mean to, of course, but when men see your face they naturally give greater weight to what you say or even to what you don’t say than to the words of a mere man. I ought to be our spokesman, but your beauty is more convincing than the plain truth.’

‘How little you know me,’ said Helen with a sigh. ‘No woman ever lived who needed beauty less than I do. See here, Paris — I will make you a promise. This barbarous king shall not see my face to-morrow until he has given judgment. I renounce the advantage you complain of, and you shall have it all your own way. It may be the death of us both, and I may say some things that you won’t like, but at least you can never feel that I saved myself by my poor face at your expense. I will tell you fairly in advance, however, what I think will happen. Unless they put us both to death, we shall be parted.’

' The difference between us,’ said Paris bitterly, ‘is that I would rather die with you than live without you.'

‘My poor Paris,’ said Helen, ‘life is always good.'

Next morning a bend in the river revealed to them the columned temples and palaces of Memphis, the busy quays, the avenues of palms, the statues of dead kings towering to the sky, the multitude of inhabitants, numerous as ants and very like ants in their activity and the strict division of them into carriers of burdens, soldiers, and rulers. For a while Paris and Helen forgot their danger and their divided hearts, so insignificant did they seem. Paris was overwhelmed; how could he hope to get so much as a patient hearing from the king of such a city? But Helen carried her head high beneath her sheltering veil. ‘I like this place,’ she said again.

Without undue delay they were brought before the King. Half a dozen times they thought they had reached the presence, for each successive anteroom deceived them by its splendor. The audience hall itself was like a park of trees with its interminable avenues of columns. The King sat upon a high chair on a raised platform. He wore a beard on his chin and a golden serpent on his head. His guards and attendants were past counting.

A chancellor called upon the sailors to tell their tale, and they repeated what they had said to the priest and before Thonis.

Then Paris was bidden to reply. He blinked and swallowed and made the speech he had prepared. He repeated in the main what he had said before Thonis, but one statement he altered. ‘These men lie,’ he said. ‘They are slaves and badly frightened slaves. They believe I have brought them bad luck, and they will say anything to blacken me. These goods of which they talk so much I brought from Troy as gifts from my father and my mother to my bride.’

The King turned to the sailors. ‘Can you prove your words ? ‘ he asked.

‘My lord,’ said the captain, ‘your scribe holds in his hand the writing of what the prince told the warden of the port. Will you graciously ask him to read it?’

And from a sheet of some thin tough stuff covered with dismal signs the scribe recited, to Paris’s amazement, every word he had said to the warden, including the story of the shipwreck. This was mere magic to the unfortunate young man, and he hung his head in shame and discouragement. Through the confusion of his thoughts he heard Helen’s clear, moving voice.

‘O King, may I speak?’ said she.

‘Speak, madam,’ said the King, ‘but raise your veil.’

Helen knelt at his feet. ‘ Let me keep to the custom of my simple country,’ she begged. ‘I could not speak if I beheld your greatness.’

‘As you will, my child,’ said the King.

Helen rose to her feet and spoke, and all listened attentively, so compelling was her voice.

‘All that this gentleman has said is true but for one thing; and what these men have said is true also, as far as their slave souls can know the truth. I am the daughter of Leda and of Zeus, though Tyndareus is called my father. When I was still a child, he gave me in marriage to Menelaus and with me he gave a kingdom. From my birth Aphrodite has been my mistress and my friend. She it was who bade me leave my husband with the stranger prince and take with me for my comfort and for my credit in a strange land some small part of the goods I brought to Menelaus. I thought I might do as I would with my own; but let them be sent back to Sparta. They are nothing. Surely some god at enmity with Aphrodite has driven us out of our course and brought us to this distress. Who can tell the mind of the gods that live forever? Far easier would it have been for me to live on quietly at Sparta with goodly Menelaus.’

While Paris was marveling at the adroitness with which Helen had conveyed the idea that her elopement was a duty rather than a pleasure and had avoided the plea of all-for-love which he now felt he had himself been somewhat undignified in urging, he was surprised to find that, though she had herself made an excellent impression on the King, she had not done much for her friend.

‘My child,’ said the King, ‘I see how your simplicity and ignorance of the world have been played upon by this young man, who seems to be at the same time designing and incompetent. There are aspects of the case on which we should be wise to shed the light of a noble woman’s mind’; and, turning to an officer of the guard, he said, ‘Give Pier Majesty my love, and ask her if she will kindly attend me here.’

This development was a thunderclap to Paris. Much as he disliked facing the idea, it had become clearer to him at every step that Helen, not he, would save them if they were to be saved. He detested the sight of her power over other men, yet he had come to count on it. He regarded it as demonstrated that no man would be severe with Helen; but what about a woman? He felt instinctively that the very sources of her strength with men would handicap her here. How fortunate that her face was veiled! In looking forward to their life in Troy, he had always felt that Hector and his father would be Helen’s best friends and might be obliged sometimes to protect her from the women of the family. And now this Queen! What was she like, and how would Helen deal with her? He felt another pang of mingled pain and hope in the reflection that Helen’s mind was dealing with the fresh problem far more clearly and more rapidly than his own.

A disturbance in the hall told of the Queen’s arrival. She bowed before the King and seated herself on a vacant throne at his right. She had a strong, somewhat stern face, in feature not unlike the King’s own, and she wore, like him, the royal asp. The King pointed out to her the parties to the suit and repeated in substance their various evidence.

‘I refrain, my dear,’ said he, ‘from comment of my own, as I wish your independent opinion.’

The chancellor looked fixedly at the wall two hundred feet away; two courtiers exchanged a glance; the captain of the guard coughed behind his hand. It was clear to Paris that to the King’s familiars t here was something amusing in his speech.

‘It seems quite clear,’ said the Queen in a loud, determined voice, ‘that the young man is a liar, a seducer, and a thief, and that the young woman is a lost creature.’

‘Madam,’ said Paris, ‘with your knowledge of the world you should realize that I am not a liar; if I were, I should never have told so stupid a lie as this one. Nor am I a thief. This lady has explained that she took only of her own. Let the goods go back to Menelaus at once. As she says, they are nothing. And least of all am I a seducer, if you mean by the word what it means to me.’

‘I suppose you are this woman’s lover,’said the Queen.

‘I love her, certainly,’ said Paris.

The Queen looked at him malevolently. ‘I am not interested in the subtleties of illicit love,’ said she.

Helen had been slowly advancing inch by inch toward the Queen. As these words were spoken, she threw herself at the Queen’s feet with a little sob. ‘Oh, madam!’ she cried. ‘If I had only had a mother, a sister, a friend like you! Never has my unhappy lot brought into my life a woman so high-minded!’

‘Tut, tut,’ said the Queen; ‘what’s all this?’

‘I am not worthy, madam,’ sobbed Helen, ‘so much as to touch your robe, but let my sinful lips purify themselves thus,’ and she bent her lovely head and, beneath her veil, kissed the Queen’s sandal.

It was evident that the Queen began to be interested. ‘Let me tell you all,’ Helen went on. ‘As you say, such a story as mine is hardly fit for your ears, and yet I never knew until I saw you and heard your words how wicked I have been. I beg you, madam, of your goodness to take me apart where no man can hear us. I will tell you everything, just as it happened, and you shall tell me how to make atonement to gods and men.’

A sort of smile tinctured the Queen’s grimness. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said to the King, ‘I ask you to put this young woman in my charge. You will doubtless deal with the man to the full extent of the law. Death, I should say, would meet his case.’

‘The trouble is, my dear,’ said the King, ‘that our laws absolutely forbid putting strangers to death. I am horrified as you are by his violation of the first principles of society, but what can I do? We can keep the lady and the goods and restore them, when opportunity serves, to the barbarous chief to whom they belong; but I can do nothing with the young man but give him a ship and send him home.’

‘It is a pity,’ said the Queen. She rose to withdraw, and directed that Helen should be brought to her. With parted lips and round eyes of wonder Paris watched them go.

IV

It was not until the following day that he saw Helen again, and he spent a restless night in wondering what her next move would be. It would be untrue to say that his confidence in Helen was unshaken. As he recalled their days of furtive love-making in Sparta, when her passion and her amorous invention had excelled his as much as her cool diplomacy excelled his now, he could not quite convince himself that circumstances alone were changed; the change was in Helen herself. All that she had done for them both might have been an added bond, but it was in facta barrier. She did not confide in him. She did not let him feel that their interests were one. It had not yet occurred to him that she might throw him over, but he realized wearily that she was not a simple person like himself, and that possession of her, instead of being the great simplification he had expected, was a complication perhaps too great for his powers.

Early in the morning a messenger brought him to her, and to his relief he was alone with her. It was the first time since they had left Sparta, and he ran to her with open arms. But Helen checked him.

‘ Paris,’ she said, ‘ I am on my honor. Be brave, my dear friend. This is our last talk together, and we must be like brother and sister.’

‘What!’ shouted Paris, standing before her, his arms still outstretched. ‘What do you mean? What have they done to you?’

‘They have shown me,’ said Helen gently, ‘that we have done wrong. Love is not the only thing in the world. There are greater gods than Aphrodite.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Paris. ‘Are you throwing me over? ‘

‘You make it very hard,’ said Helen. ‘If we had planned together to rob a shrine or to kill a defenseless person, and you had come to me and said, “Helen, we must not do this; it is wrong,” I should not have raged at you. I should have thought to myself, “ Paris is an honorable man; there must be reason in what he says.” And I should have thought it over, and if I came to agree with you I should have been grateful to you; and if I did not agree with you I should still believe you were acting for the best, to satisfy your own sense of what was right.’

‘Helen,’ said Paris, ‘you make me sick with your sense of what is right. There is only one right thing now for us, and that is to be true to each other. You have left everything for me; I have risked everything for you. We are man and woman grown; we knew the nature of our act, and we knew the responsibility we undertook toward each other. Was it mere impulse that gave you to me in Sparta? I thought your whole life was in it as mine was. But you can’t mean it! Don’t frighten me so. Are there listeners for whom you are speaking?’

‘I don’t know whether there are listeners,’ said Helen. ‘Whether there are or not, I can say but the one thing. Some day, Paris, you will see that I am right.’

Once in his shepherd days Paris had killed a lioness who attacked the flock, and had found beside her a tiny whelp. This he brought to his hut, and tended it, and found it the prettiest of little pets. It grew more rapidly than he could have wished, but in spite of the warnings of his friends he kept the affectionate creature as his housemate. One day as he was teasing it in play it leaped straight at him with bared tooth and claw, and if comrades had not been at hand Paris’s pet would have torn his throat out. The scene and its emotion flashed through his consciousness now.

‘ You are terrible,’ said he to Helen. ‘You are dangerous. You ought to be killed.’

‘Keep your hate alive, Paris, to help you to fight for Troy when the Greeks come.’

‘But the Greeks will not come if you are not there.’

‘I think they will,’ said Helen. ‘My husband’s brother Agamemnon saw quite well what you and I were planning; why do you think he let us come away without hindrance? Simply because it would make a very convenient cause of war. The truth is, Paris, Agamemnon is going to take Troy because he believes the Greeks should control the Hellespont.’

‘The Greeks control the Hellespont!’ shouted Paris. ‘My brother Hector will have a word or two to say to that!’

‘ I have no doubt,’ said Helen, ‘ that Hector and Agamemnon will exchange many words on the windy plains of Troy, whether Helen is there or not. And doubtless Agamemnon will insist that I am there, and the stupid chiefs will believe him, and doubtless as long as men sing songs, songs will be sung of how Troy fell for shameless Helen’s sake, for a runaway princess is a more inspiring thing to fight for and to sing of than a trade route. But it will not be true. . . . Paris, they will not let us talk longer. The guard is at hand to take you to the sea. Forget me until you can think of me more kindly. As for me, I shall stay with these good people and keep myself for Menelaus.’

At this Paris’s nerves were fairly overset and he burst into a horrible laugh. He flung his arm across his eyes and ran from the room, and as he met the guard on the threshold he cried through his laughter, ‘She is keeping herself for Menelaus!’

Helen sat awhile pensive until a maiden came to summon her to the Queen. ‘My dear,’ said the Queen, ‘you have behaved nobly. Sit beside me with your work, and tell me the story you hinted at yesterday of your illtreatment at the hands of Theseus.’

And the Queen gave Helen a golden distaff and a silver basket that ran upon wheels, and the wheels were rimmed with gold.