--and touch it. If it dissolves into nothing I'll probably feel
better----"

He began to remove coat, collar, and shoes, forcing himself to talk
calmly all the while.

"The thing to do," he went on dully, "is to swim over there and get a
look at it. Of course, it isn't really there. As for drowning--it really
doesn't matter.... In the midst of life we are in Long Island.... And, if
it _is_ there--I c-c-can c-capture it for the B-B-Bronx----"

Reason tottered; it revived, however, as he plunged into the s. w.[A] of
Oyster Bay and struck out, silent as a sea otter for the shimmering shape
on the ruddy rocks.

[Footnote A: Sparkling Waters or Sacred Waters.]

Flavilla was rehearsing with all her might; her white throat swelled with
the music she poured forth to the sky and sea; her pretty fingers played
with the folds of burnished hair; her gilded hand-mirror flashed, she
gently beat time with her tail.

So thoroughly, so earnestly, did she enter into the spirit of the siren
she was representing that, at moments, she almost wished some fisherman
might come into view--just to see whether he'd really go overboard after
her.

However, audacious as her vagrant thoughts might be, she was entirely
unprepared to see a human head, made sleek by sea water, emerge from the
floating weeds almost at her feet.

"Goodness," she said faintly, and attempted to rise. But her fish tail
fettered her.

"Are you real!" gasped Kingsbury.

"Y-yes.... Are you?"

"Great James!" he half shouted, half sobbed, "are you _human?_"

"V-very. Are _you?_"

He clutched at the weedy rock and dragged himself up. For a moment he lay
breathing fast, water dripping from his soaked clothing. Once he feebly
touched the glittering fish tail that lay on the rock beside him. It
quivered, but needle and thread had been at work there; he drew a deep
breath and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again she was looking about for a likely place to
launch herself into the bay; in fact, she had already started to glide
toward the water; the scraping of the scales aroused him, and he sat up.

"I heard singing," he said dreamily, "and I climbed a tree and saw--you!
Do you blame me for trying to corroborate a thing like _you?_"

"You thought I was a _real_ one?"

"I thought that I thought I saw a real one."

She looked at him hopefully.

"Tell me, _did_ my singing compel you to swim out here?"

"I don't know what compelled me."

"But--you _were_