reception; they swept by.... I cannot
remember what they were like----

CHLORIS.

It must have been dreary for you there, Persephone.

PERSEPHONE.

Well, we had our own interests. I believe I did my duty. It seemed
to me that I must be there if Pluto wished it, and I was pleased
to be with him. But--if you can understand me--there was a sort of
a dimness over everything, and I never entered into the political
life of the place. As to the social life, you can imagine that
they were not people that one cared to know. At the same time,
of course, I feel now how ridiculous it was of me to hold that
position and not take more interest.

MAIA.

Demeter, of course, never encouraged you to make any observation of
the manners and customs of Hades.

PERSEPHONE.

Oh, no! that was just it. She always said: "Pray don't let me hear
the least thing about the horrid place." You remember that she very
strongly disapproved of my going there at all----

CHLORIS.

Yes; I remember that Arethusa, when she brought me back my
daffodils, told me how angry Demeter was----

PERSEPHONE.

And yet she was quite nice to my husband when once Zeus had decided
that I had better go.

[_There is a pause._ MAIA _rises and leans on the parapet, over the
woods, now drowned in twilight, to the sea, which still faintly
glitters. She turns and comes back to the other two, standing
above them._]

MAIA.

I, too, might have observed something as I went sailing over the
purpureal ocean. But I was always talking to my sisters. The fact
is we all of us neglected to learn anything about death.

CHLORIS.

We thought of it as of something happening in that world of Hades
which could never become of the slightest importance to us. Who
could have imagined that we should have to take it into practical
account?

MAIA.

Well, now we shall have to accept it, to be prepared for its
tremendous approach.

CHLORIS [_after a pause_].

Perhaps this famous "death" may prove after all to be only another
kind of life. [_Rising and approaching_ MAIA.] Don't you think this
is indicated even by the song of these barbarians? Besides, our
stay here must be the ante-chamber to something wholly different.

MAIA.

We can hardly suppose that it can lead to nothing.

CHLORIS.

No; surely we shall put off more or less leisurely, with dignity or
without it, the garments of our sensuous existence, and discover
something underneat