So Jurgen now made much of his step-children: and indeed he found their innocent prattle quite as intelligent, in essentials, as the talk of the full-grown nature myths who infested the palace of Anaïtis. And the four of them--Jurgen, and critical Alecto, and grave Tisiphonê, and fairy-like little Megæra,--would take long walks, and play with their dolls (though Alecto was a trifle condescending toward dolls), and romp together in the eternal evening of Cocaigne; and discuss what sort of dresses and trinkets Mother would probably bring them when she came back from Ecbatana or Lesbos, and would generally enjoy themselves. Rather pathetically earnest and unimaginative little lasses, Jurgen found the young Eumenidês: they inherited much of their mother's narrow-mindedness, if not their father's brooding and gloomy tendencies; but in them narrow-mindedness showed merely as amusing. And Jurgen loved them, and would often reflect what a pity it was that these dear little girls were destined when they reached maturity, to spend the rest of their lives in haunting criminals and adulterers and parricides and, generally, such persons as must inevitably tarnish the girls' outlook upon life, and lead them to see too much of the worst side of human nature. So Jurgen was content enough. But still he was not actually happy, not even among the endless pleasures of Cocaigne. "And what is this thing that I desire?" he would ask himself, again and again. And still he did not know: he merely felt he was not getting justice: and a dim sense of this would trouble him even while he was playing with the Eumenidês. 25. Cantraps of the Master Philologist But now, as has been recorded, it was September, and Jurgen could see that Anaïtis too was worrying over something. She kept it from him as long as possible: first said it was nothing at all, then said he would know it soon enough, then wept a little over the possibility that he would probably be very glad to hear it, and eventually told him. For in becoming the consort of a nature myth connected with the Moon Jurgen had of course exposed himself to the danger of being converted into a solar legend by the Philologists, and in that event would be compelled to leave Cocaigne with the Equinox, to enter into autumnal exploits elsewhere. And Anaïtis was quite heart-broken over the prospect of losing Jurgen. "For I have never had such a Prince Consort in Cocaigne, so maddening, and so helpless, and so clever; and the girls are so fond of you, although they have not been able to get on at all with so many of their step-fathers! And I know that you are flippant and heartless, but you have quite spoiled me for other men. No, Jurgen, there is no need to argue, for I have experimented with at least a dozen lovers lately, when I was traveling, and they bored me insufferably. They had, as you put it, dear, no conversation: and you are the only young man I have found in all these ages who could talk interestingly."