The Ruinous Face | Page 8

and stood over the body of Paris, and held out her arms to the King, saying, "Husband, lord, behold, here am I, by your side!" Eutyches came after her, armed also.
Then Menelaus, with the bloody spear in his hand newly plucked from the neck of Paris, gazed at his wife, not knowing her. So presently he said, weak-voiced, "What is this, O loveliest in the world?" But he knew Eutyches again, who had been with him and her in Sparta, and said to him, "Disarm her, but with care, lest the bronze bruise her fair flesh." So Eutyches, trembling, disarmed her, that she stood a lovely woman before the King. And Menelaus, with a shout, took her in his arms and cried out above the fire and dust and shrieking in the street, "Come, come, my treasure and desire! Love me now or I die!"
But she clung to him, imploring. "Not here," she said, "not here, Menelaus. Take me hence; let me fare by thy side this night."
But he pressed her the closer, saying, "Come, thou must love me now," and lifted her in his arms and ran up the stair and through the gallery of the house to the great chamber where of late she had lain. And he called her women to disrobe her; and Helen fell to crying bitterly, and said, "Oh, I am a slave, I am a slave: I am bought and sold and handed about." And she could not be comforted or stayed from weeping. But nothing recked King Menelaus for that.
* * * * *
When the walls of wide-wayed Troy were cast down, and of the towers and houses of the chiefs nothing stood but staring walls and rafters charred by fire; and when the temples of the Dardan Gods had been sacked, and scorn done to the body of Priam the Old; and Cassandra in the tent of King Agamemnon shuddered and rocked herself about; and when dogs had eaten the fair body of Paris, then the Ach?ans turned their eyes with longing to their homesteads. So there was a great ship-building and launching of keels; and at last King Menelaus embarked for peopled Laced?mon, and took his lovely wife with him in the ship, and stayed his course at Rhodes for certain days, resting there with Helen. There he set a close guard about her all day; and as Paris had loved her, so loved he. But she was wretched, and spent her days in weeping; and grew pale and thin, and was for ever scheming shifts how she might be delivered from such a life as she led. Ever by the door of the chamber stood Eutyches, and watched her closely, marking her distress. And she knew that he knew it; for what woman does not know the secret mind of a man with regard to her?
* * * * *
So, on a day, sat Helen by the window with her needlework in her lap, and looked out over the sea. Eutyches came into the room where she was, silently, through the hangings of the door, and kneeling to her, kissed her knee. She turned to him her sad face, saying, "What wouldst thou of me, Eutyches?"
"Lady," he said, "thy pardon first of all."
She smiled upon him. "Thou hast it," she said; "what then?"
He said to her, "Lady, I have served thee these many years, and no man knows thy mind better than I do, who know it only from thy face. For I have been but a house-dog in thy sight. But I have never read it wrongly; and now I know that thou art unhappy...."
"Yes," she said, "it is true. I am very unhappy, and with reason."
Eutyches drew from his bosom a sharp sword and laid it upon her knee. "Take this sovereign remedy from thy servant," he said. "No ills can withstand it, so sharp it is." And he left her with the bare sword upon her knees. She hid it in the coverings of the bed.
Now, when King Menelaus had feasted in the hall, he came immediately after into the Queen's chamber. And he said to her, "Hail, loveliest of women born!" and again, "Hail, thou Rose of the World!"
She answered him nothing, but went to her women and suffered herself to be made ready. Then came the King in to her and began to woo her; but she, looking strangely upon him by the light of the torch in the wall, sat up and held him off with her hand. "Touch me not, Menelaus," she said, "touch me no more until I know whether thou art true or false."
He was astonished at her, saying, "What is this, dear love? Dost thou call me false who for ten bitter years have striven to have thee again;