Part 52 (2/2)

Professor Theobald was chuckling gleefully.

Lady Engleton laughed. ”Then, Mrs. Temperley, you _do_ feel rather wicked yourself, although you don't admire our nice, well-behaved, average woman.”

”Oh, the mere opposite of an error isn't always truth,” said Hadria.

”The weather has run to your head!” cried Henriette.

Hadria's eyes kindled. ”Yes, it is like wine; clear, intoxicating sparkling wine, and its fumes are mounting! Why does civilisation never provide for these moments?”

”What would you have? A modified feast of Dionysius?”

”Why not? The whole earth joins in the festival and sings, except mankind. Some frolic of music and a stirring dance!--But ah! I suppose, in this tamed England of ours, we should feel it artificial; we should fear to let ourselves go. But in Greece--if we could fancy ourselves there, shorn of our little local personalities--in some cla.s.sic grove, on sunlit slopes, all bubbling with the re-birth of flowers and alive with the light, the broad all-flooding light of Greece that her children dreaded to leave more than any other earthly thing, when death threatened--could one not imagine the loveliness of some garlanded dance, and fancy the naads, and the dryads, and all the hosts of Pan gambolling at one's heels?”

”Really, Mrs. Temperley, you were not born for an English village. I should like Mrs. Walker to hear you!”

”Mrs. Walker knows better than to listen to me. She too hides somewhere, deep down, a poor fettered thing that would gladly join the revel, if it dared. We all do.”

Lady Engleton dwelt joyously on the image of Mrs. Walker, cavorting, garlanded, on a Greek slope, with the nymphs and water-sprites for familiar company.

Lady Engleton had risen laughing, and proposed a stroll to Hadria.

Henriette, who did not like the tone the conversation was taking, desired to join them.

”I never quite know how far you are serious, and how far you are just amusing yourself, Hadria,” said Lady Engleton. ”Our talking of Greece reminds me of some remark you made the other day, about Helen. You seemed to me almost to sympathize with her.”

Hadria's eyes seemed to be looking across miles of sea to the sunny Grecian land.

”If a slave breaks his chains and runs, I am always glad,” she said.

”I was talking about Helen.”

”So was I. If a Spartan wife throws off her bondage and defies the laws that insult her, I am still more glad.”

”But not if she sins?” Henriette coughed, warningly.

”Yes; if she sins.”

”Oh, Hadria,” remonstrated Henriette, in despair.

”I don't see that it follows that Helen _did_ sin, however; one does not know much about her sentiments. She revolted against the tyranny that held her shut in, enslaved, body and soul, in that wonderful Greek world of hers. I am charmed to think that she gave her countrymen so much trouble to a.s.sert her husband's right of owners.h.i.+p. It was at _his_ door that the siege of Troy ought to be laid. I only wish elopements always caused as much commotion!” Lady Engleton laughed, and Miss Temperley tried to catch Hadria's eye.

”Well, that _is_ a strange idea! And do you really think Helen did not sin? Seriously now.”

”I don't know. There is no evidence on that point.” Lady Engleton laughed again.

”You do amuse me. a.s.suming that Helen did not sin, I suppose you would (if only for the sake of paradox) accuse the virtuous Greek matrons--who sat at home, and wove, and span, and bore children--of sinning against the State!”

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