Page:The Sea Lady.djvu/191

 of the practical tone. "Well, why not?" she asked.

"And go about in a bath chair, and—No, that's not it. What is it?"

He looked up into her eyes, and it was like looking into deep water. Down in that deep there stirred impalpable things. She smiled at him.

"No!" she said, "I sha'n't marry him and go about in a bath chair. And grow old as all earthly women must. (It's the dust, I think, and the dryness of the air, and the way you begin and end.) You burn too fast, you flare and sink and die. This life of yours!—the illnesses and the growing old! When the skin wears shabby, and the light is out of the hair, and the teeth— Not even for love would I face it. No. . . . But then you know—" Her voice sank to a low whisper. "There are better dreams."

"What dreams?" rebelled Melville.