Page:The Sea Lady.djvu/302

 "She's very beautiful. I'm not blind, Chatteris. She's beautiful in a different way."

"Yes, but that's only the name for the effect. Why is she very beautiful?"

Melville shrugged his shoulders.

"She's not beautiful to every one."

"You mean?"

"Bunting keeps calm."

"Oh—he!"

"And other people don't seem to see it—as I do."

"Some people seem to see no beauty at all, as we do. With emotion, that is."

"Why do we?"

"We see—finer."

"Do we? Is it finer? Why should it be finer to see beauty where it is fatal to us to see it? Why? Unless we are to believe there is no reason in things, why should this—impossibility, be beautiful to any one anyhow? Put it as a matter of