d love to have men fighting for me.

TSUMU [in high alarm]. May Zeus turn a deaf ear to your voice.

HELENA. Don't be impertinent, Tsumu. I've got to have some sort of
amusement.

TSUMU. You've only to wait till next week, and you can see another of
the priestesses sacrificed to Diana.

HELENA. That doesn't interest me any longer. The girls are positively
beginning to like it. No! My mind is set on war.

TSUMU [terrified]. I have five fathers of my children to lose.

HELENA. War, or--or----

TSUMU [hopefully]. Have I been so long your slave that I no longer know
your wish?

HELENA [very simply]. Well, I should like to have a lover.

TSUMU [springs up and rushes over in horror to draw the curtains across
the door to the library. All of a tremble]. Gods grant they didn't hear
you.

HELENA. Don't be alarmed, Tsumu. Analytikos is over eighty. [She bursts
into a loud peal of laughter and MENELAUS rushes into the room.]

MENELAUS [in high irritation]. I wish you wouldn't make so much noise in
here. A King might at least expect quiet in his own palace.

HELENA. Tsumu, see if my bath is ready. [TSUMU exits.] You used not
speak like that to me, Moo Moo.

MENELAUS [in a temper]. How many times must I tell you that my name is
Menelaus and that it isn't "Moo Moo?"

HELENA [sweetly]. I'll never do it again, Moo Moo. [She giggles.]

MENELAUS. Your laugh gets on my nerves. It's louder than it used to be.

HELENA. If you wish it, I'll never, never laugh again.

MENELAUS. You've promised that too often.

HELENA [sadly]. Things are not as they used to be.

MENELAUS. Are you going to start that again?

HELENA [with a tinge of melancholy]. I suppose you'd like me to be still
and sad.

MENELAUS [bitterly]. Is it too much to hope that you might be still and
happy?

HELENA [speaking very quickly and tragically]. Don't treat me cruelly,
Moo Moo. You don't understand me. No man ever really understands a
woman. There are terrible depths to my nature. I had a long talk with
Dr. Aesculapius only last week, and he told me I'm too introspective.
It's the curse of us emotional women. I'm really quite worried, but much
you care, much you care. [A note of tears comes into her voice.] I'm
sure you don't love me any more, Moo Moo. No! No! Don't answer me! If
you did you couldn't speak to me the way you do. I've never wronged
you in deed or in thought. No, never--never. I've given up my hopes and
aspirations, because I knew you