Page:The Sea Lady.djvu/269

 "So that he"

"Yes, and then she whispers, 'There are better dreams!

The girl regarded him in frank perplexity.

"She hints of these vague better dreams, she whispers of a way"

"What way?"

"I do not know what way. But it is something—something that tears at the very fabric of this daily life."

"You mean?"

"She is a mermaid, she is a thing of dreams and desires, a siren, a whisper and a seduction. She will lure him with her"

He stopped.

"Where?" she whispered.

"Into the deeps."

"The deeps?"

They hung upon a long pause. Melville sought vagueness with infinite