column of
hair, was suffused with rosy mirth.

"I wonder what Horace really thinks of him?"

The face, triumphantly crowned with its dark coil, looked grave.

"He _is_ a gentleman. At least, he lied like one."

By this time Lucia was in bed, and there was no face in the glass to
dispute or corroborate that statement.

CHAPTER XXIII

The next morning he gave into her hands the manuscript of _Helen in
Leuce_. It had arrived two or three days ago, packed by Spinks between
his new shirts. She had expected to feel a little guilty as she
received the familiar sheets; but as she glanced over them she saw
that they were anything but familiar; what she had to deal with was a
clean new draft.

She had a fairly clear recollection of the outline of the play.

In Act I Helen lands in the enchanted island of Leuce, and is found
watching the ship that brought her sailing away with the dead
Menelaus, for he, being altogether mortal, may not follow her there.
The Chorus tells the story of Helen, her rape by Theseus, her marriage
with Menelaus, her flight with Paris, the tragedy of Troy and her
return to Argos. It tells how through all her adventures the godhead
in her remained pure, untouched, holding itself apart.

In Act II Helen is asleep, for the soul of Leda still troubles her
divinity, and her mortality is heavy upon her. Helen rises out of her
sleep; her divinity is seen struggling with her mortality, burning
through the beauty of her body. Desire wakens in Achilles, and in
Helen terror and anguish, as of one about to enter again into the pain
of mortal life. But he may not touch her till he, too, has put on
immortality. Helen prays for deliverance from the power of Aphrodite.
She rouses in Achilles a great anger against Aphrodite by reminding
him of the death of Patroclus; so that he calls down upon the goddess
the curses of all the generations of men.

It was this Act that lived in Lucia's memory. Act III she had not yet
read, but she had gathered from the argument that Pallas Athene was
there to appear to Achilles and divest him of his mortality; that she
was to lead him to Helen, whose apotheosis was supposed to be
complete; the Act concluding with two choruses, an epithalamium
celebrating the wedding of Helen and Achilles, and a Hymn in praise of
Athene.

She remembered how when Horace had first told her of the subject,
Helen in Leuce, she had looked it up in Lempriere, found a reference
in Homer and