HELENA [boxing her ears]. None of your tricks, you ebony fiend! TSUMU [crouching]. Descendant of paradise, forgive me. HELENA. If you bruise my perfect flesh, the King will kill you. My beauty is his religion. He can sit for hours, as if at prayer, just examining the arch of my foot. Tsumu, you may kiss my foot. TSUMU [prostrate]. May the Gods make me worthy of your kindness! HELENA. That's enough. Tsumu, are you married? TSUMU [getting up]. I've been so busy having babies I never had time to get married. HELENA. It's a great disillusionment. TSUMU [aghast]. What! HELENA. I'm not complaining. Moo Moo is the best of husbands, but sometimes being adored too much is trying. [She sighs deeply.] I think I'll wear my heliotrope this afternoon. [A trumpet sounds below in the courtyard. TSUMU goes to the window.] TSUMU. They are changing the guards at the gates of the palace. It's almost time for your bath. [She begins scraping the massage ointment back into the box.] HELENA. You're as careful with that ointment as Moo Moo is with me. TSUMU. Precious things need precious guarding. HELENA. It's very short-sighted on Moo Moo's part to send everybody to the galleys who dares lift a head when I pass by--and all those nice-looking soldiers! Why--the only men I ever see besides Moo Moo are Analytikos and a lot of useless eunuchs. TSUMU. Oh, those eunuchs! HELENA [as she sits dreaming]. I wish, I wish---- [She stops short.] TSUMU. You have but to speak your desire to the King. HELENA [shocked]. Tsumu! How can you think of such a thing? I'm not a bad woman. TSUMU. He would die for you. HELENA [relieved]. Ah! Do you think so, Tsumu? TSUMU. All Sparta knows that His Majesty is a lover of peace, and yet he would rush into battle to save you. HELENA. I should 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.