THE SEA LADY
why do they take us? That is the question I can't get away from just now."
My cousin meditated, no doubt with his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. "It is illusion," he said. "It is a sort of glamour. After all, look at it squarely. What is she? What can she give you? She promises you vague somethings. . . . She is a snare, she is deception. She is the beautiful mask of death."
"Yes," said Chatteris. "I know."
And then again, "I know.
"There is nothing for me to learn about that," he said. "But why—why should the mask of death be beautiful? After all— We get our duty by good hard reasoning. Why should reason and justice carry everything? Perhaps after all there are things beyond our reason, perhaps after all desire has a claim on us?"
He stopped interrogatively and Mel-
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