So in the evening, just after sunset, Jurgen returned to the
Hamadryad: he walked now with the aid of the ashen staff which
Thersitês had given Jurgen, and Jurgen was mirthless and rather
humble.
"I have observed your King Achilles," Jurgen says, "and he is a better man than I. Queen Helen, as I confess with regret, is worthily mated."
"And what have you to say about her?" inquires the Hamadryad.
"Why, there is nothing more to say than that she is worthily mated, and fit to be the wife of Achilles." For once, poor Jurgen was really miserable. "For I admire this man Achilles, I envy him, and I fear him," says Jurgen: "and it is not fair that he should have been created my superior."
"But is not Queen Helen the loveliest of ladies that you have ever seen?"
"As to that—!" says Jurgen. He led the Hamadryad to a forest pool hard-by the oak-tree in which she resided. The dusky water lay unruffled, a natural mirror. "Look!" said Jurgen, and he spoke with a downward waving of his staff.
The silence gathering in the woods was wonderful. Here the air was sweet and pure: and the little wind which went about the ilex boughs in search of night was a tender and peaceful wind, because it knew that the all-healing night was close at hand.
The Hamadryad replied, "But I see only my own face."
"It is the answer to your question, none the less. Now do you tell me your name, my dear, so that I may know who in reality is the loveliest of all the ladies I have ever seen."
The Hamadryad told him that her name was Chloris, and that she always looked a fright with her hair arranged as it was to-day, and that he was a strangely impudent fellow. So he in turn confessed to her he was King Jurgen of Eubonia, drawn from his remote kingdom by exaggerated reports as to the beauty of Queen Helen. Chloris agreed with him that rumor was in such matters invariably untrustworthy.