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THE CRISIS
"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 solici-
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