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 wanted me around you. And now, NOW----
[She can contain the tears no longer.] Because I have neglected my
beauty and because I am old and ugly, you regret that Ulysses or
Agamemnon didn't marry me when you all wanted me, and I know you curse
the day you ever saw me. [She is breathless.]
MENELAUS [fuming]. Well! Have you done?
HELENA. No. I could say a great deal more, but I'm not a talkative
woman.
[ANALYTIKOS comes in from the library.]
ANALYTIKOS. Your Majesty, are we to read no longer to-day?
HELENA. I have something to say to the King. [ANALYTIKOS goes toward the
library. MENELAUS anxiously stops him.]
MENELAUS. No. Stay here. You are a wise man and will understand the
wisdom of the Queen.
ANALYTIKOS [bowing to HELENA]. Helena is wise as she is beautiful.
MENELAUS. She is attempting to prove to me in a thousand words that
she's a silent woman.
ANALYTIKOS. Women are seldom silent. [HELENA resents this.] Their beauty
is forever speaking for them.