“True—true!”
“Thus was I. Thy mother caused me to think of naught but herself.”
“Then canst thou feel for us. For, will not I feel with my children when they come to this? Ah, but they will find in me the feeling they crave, that sweet knowledge they will believe none have known but themselves. Yea, this my delight, will live again in theirs. Its memory, even, will be delight. Thinkest thou not with me, Electra?”
Scarcely could Electra reply to so much. But Deucalion spoke for her. “Hellen, leave that which may happen in the coming years to itself. Come back to the present. There art thou on safe ground. There can Electra answer thee. And that she may answer, I will leave you together, while I go to tell those above.”
“That is it, Father. After some little time, will we follow thee.”
“Take thy time—take thy time. Life is too short to be in a hurry.” With these last wise words, and a merry twinkling of the eyes toward the blushing Electra, he turned to ascend the ladder.
But the bliss of being left to themselves was like all bliss in general. It did not last long. Scarce seemed it a minute when Pyrrha’s voice was heard calling to them. Thus warned, they sat up properly to await the moment when her dear eyes should be looking down upon them. Then it was, “Come, come, my children. Come, that I may clasp you.”
“Ah, Mother, if thou wouldst but wait a little. I have but just begun!”
“Hellen!” reprimanded Electra; and so comically that Deucalion, who was peering over, burst into a laugh. This brought all the friends about him to peer over also. Foremost was Pelop. Upon catching his roguish look, Hellen was forced to laugh himself, though he said thereafter, lugubriously: “Electra, up will we go. No peace is our own for this night, I know.”
So, up they hastened to be caressed and congratulated in Pyrrha’s sweetest fashion, and then set upon by the friends and the rather pensive Sensel. As to Æole, she was in such a flutter of sympathy and delight that her lips refused duty, though her eyes answered for both: and her blushes almost equaled Electra’s.