This page has been validated.
THE SEA LADY
Melville made no reply. She scrutinised his face for a time, and then looked out at the sunlight again.
"Do you want him back?" he said.
"I don't know."
"Do you want him back?"
"I feel as if I had never wanted him before."
"And now?"
"Yes. . . . But—if he will not come back?"
"He will not come back," said Melville, "for the work."
"I know."
"He will not come back for his self-respect—or any of those things."
"No."
"Those things, you know, are only fainter dreams. All the palace you have made for him is a dream. But"
"Yes?"
"He might come back—" he said, and
242
