But though Okyrhöe had already recovered her composure and was now arranging her drapery round her shoulders with the absolute poise of a complete balance of personal being, as she begged the excited girl to tell her how large a bodyguard Odysseus had brought with him, and as she shifted her position from side to side in attempts to see if any of the royal attendants were visible between the outlet from this sequestered chamber and the curves of the sand-dunes descending to the edge of the sea, it was clear to Pontopereia that she had not yet decided upon her line of action.
“May I go and bring them in, Mother? And then may I run and tell Zenios who’s come, and bring him back before he’s gone too far? The only danger is that if I do catch up with him — you know what he is, Mother! — he very likely will just come back alone and send me on — miles and miles on very likely! — to tell old Moros that the king has suddenly come to supper and if he comes too there’ll be one too many!”
The daughter of Teiresias certainly revealed her insight into Okyrhöe’s nature by assuming that when the lovely lady finally decided in what direction her own chief private interests lay she wouldn’t waste a second in making up her mind what she wanted done.
But what a girl of her age, however great her prophetic inspiration, naturally couldn’t know, was the enormous though imponderable part played in the lives of all grown-up women by that curious sixth sense that can only be clumsily and crudely defined by the words social instinct. Nor could she know that this same “social instinct” resembles pure animal instinct much closer than it resembles anything rational or logical, and, as such, depends to a large extent on sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.
“Can he possibly remember me?” Okyrhöe thought. Then, having dismissed that idea as out of the question—“Never mind,” she said to herself, “whether he does or not, I remember him perfectly well; and I remember that with him, where women are concerned, there are only two things, either simple lust, or simple affection. That being so—” And her train of thought concluded with obscene images.
Meanwhile Pontopereia was wondering about the blood-stained ichor dripping from the left side of the one-winged horse, wondering about the implacably-pointed beard of Odysseus, pondering on the deeply cracked bosom of the club of Herakles, pondering on the jests and jokes and jibes and jabbering conjurations of the jiggering-juggering Zeuks, and finally seeing again the ever-vigilant Nisos with the gods alone knew what sort of precious treasure done up in a sack that reeked of mysterious far-away harbours.
But Okyrhöe had already had time to make up her mind. Like the smoke of a burning arsenal her astounding decision filled the room and went eddying forth in spiral circles over the whole of Ornax and over the dark waters of the whole bay.
“What I’ve got to do is to leave Nemertes to look after Zenios, take Pontopereia with me — by the gods if they want her they shall have us both! — go with them to the palace of Odysseus; and, once there, having got rid of the old man’s old nurse, try my hand at being a combination of Kalypso and Penelope; and, as long as Athene leaves me in peace, that’ll be pretty easy!”
“No, child,” she commanded in the strong firm tone of a born feminine ruler, “No, child, I’ll come with you to welcome them. Oh no! I can’t possibly spare you to run after Zenios. Let him meet old Moros and bring him back. Nemertes must prepare a really royal meal and when Omphos, Kissos, and Sykos have washed and changed their clothes and had their own supper, they must wait at table! So come on, child, we must tell Nemertes what’s in store for her. It’s lucky we killed that old boar-pig last week; aye! What a piece of luck that is! Nemertes must have enough meat in the larder for three Odysseuses! Well, come along my dear!”
It is certain that the primeval dining-hall of Ornax had never seen such a satisfying feast as the one with which, only a few hours later, the three gratified guests along with their entertainers were delighting their souls.
What added an unexpected and quite special interest to this improvised banquet was the fact that, along with old Moros, Zenios had brought back to Ornax none other than Petraia’s sister who after a distressing scene with the Latin Nymph Egeria had embarked frantically for home; and by the aid of a real and not pretended black sail had been brought to this very coast.
To the complete surprise of their hostess the heart and soul of the whole dinner was Zeuks. Nor was it only Okyrhöe who was astonished at the way this plain rustic Achaean dominated the situation and entertained them all. Nisos was amazed at what he saw and heard. Zenios though he condescended to chuckle now and again, was obviously more interested in a flask of a special kind of wine that Moros had brought for him than in anything else; but the fact that the first Master that Ornax had had for a thousand years, had had indeed since men and Titans were almost indistinguishable in their hostility to the gods, was so abnormally thick-skinned, so self-centred, so toweringly conventional, did undoubtedly contribute to the banquet’s success.
Zenios was indeed so magnificently stupid as to take it for granted that his being of the same blood as the famous Kadmos and possessing that potentate’s Shield, Drinking-Horn, and Sceptre in the shape of a Thyrsus, were circumstances that did so much honour to any guest that chance might send him that no more was required.
And no more was required. Zenios’ guests were the luckiest of guests. They were left to entertain themselves. Nor was the fact of Zenios being such an obsessed collector of objects made of gold detrimental to what might be called the pleasant negativeness of his hospitality. His visitors obscurely thought of themselves — so completely did the mania of the born collector dominate the atmosphere of his table — as if they too were rare and precious and had been brought there for that reason.
Nor was this feeling contradicted by the nature of the locality. Ornax was literally a House of Ruins; but it was not itself a ruin. It had come to be created out of a physical acme of desperate isolation in combination with a psychic acme of impervious conceit. But it had been created by a woman; and thus the newly arisen House of Ornax had advantages, qualities, amenities and conveniences, beyond most of the Kings’ Houses in Hellas.
In the first place it was divided into five essential structures; the Mirror Room, where hung the Shield of Kadmos; the sleeping Chambers with little stone-passages and wooden doors connecting them; the Dining-Hall, prepared for the reception of about twenty guests with no less than three “guest-thrones”, as well as the permanent host-throne, ensconced in which the greatest of Collectors enjoyed his meat, his wine, and an experimental variety of baked bread and sweet-meat condiments on every night of the year; the underground treasure-chamber, entered by descending quite a long flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which was a low-arched chamber entirely surrounded by extensive shelves scooped out of solid rock and crowded with all manner of ancient vessels and platters and bowls and goblets, things that were by no means all Theban, far less all connected with Kadmos, but things that had been got together by Xenios himself, in his double role as an acquisitive collector and an implacable miser.