Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/467

Rh self, and that it's simply a business of putting everything back into place again."

He paused and she said nothing. But her face was attentive. "What you do not understand," he went on, "what no one seems to understand, is that she comes"

"Out of the sea."

"Out of some other world. She comes, whispering that this life is a phantom life, unreal, flimsy, limited, casting upon everything a spell of disillusionment"

"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 solicitude, and could not find it. He blurted out at last: "There can be but