“Dear Queen, on the morrow. It is enough for this day.”
She acquiesced, bending her head; and lay back in a sweet quiet, shortly whispering, “On the morrow.”
And on the morrow, did these youths of Pelasgia kneel before her.
First entered the prince in his brightness, elegance, grace, and beauty. Charmingly he knelt to kiss her hand, his courtesy so affecting her that a faint smile came into her face as she gave him greeting.
Then Hellen followed, kneeling and taking her other hand. Thus, the smile blended with glad tears. Here was her handsome, brave, impulsive, fiery Hellen, clad in blue and buff, and looking a young demi-god in his rebound to freedom and happiness. His face was transfigured; and hers grew in brightness as she greeted him. And she thought, as she pressed the two hands, “Am I, in truth, to smile again?”
Then in her gracious way she spoke. “Noble youths of Pelasgia, with fond pride is my greeting. But rise that I may look with even more pride upon you, that I may feast my eyes upon your brave, free port.—Ah, what garments!”
Gleeful was their laughter. Whereupon, she smiled back quite in her olden way.
“What thrills of joy ye cause me. Ah, Hellen—Hellen!”
“Fine is it to be thus looked upon,” burst from him naively. “All day could I hearken to thy praises. And to think I am that Hellen,”—he paused, fearing to bring sad thought to her forgetting self, and changed, “that Hellen, who, but yesterday, was lamenting his old garments, who feared to put them on so worn were they, who was lost in wondering where others would come from. When behold, this morning, did my father bring me these.”
“It was not that his garments were so old,” interposed Deucalion, “but that he was rent with envy upon beholding me in my change of garb, yesterday.”