phantoms feel pain. It is this: Galatea loves
you, though I think she has not yet realized it."

"I love her too," said Dan.

The Grey Weaver stared at him. "I do not understand. Substance, indeed,
may love shadow, but how can shadow love substance?"

"I love her," insisted Dan.

"Then woe to both of you! For this is impossible in Paracosma; it is a
confliction with the laws. Galatea's mate is appointed, perhaps even now
approaching."

"Laws! Laws!" muttered Dan. "Whose laws are they? Not Galatea's nor
mine!"

"But they are," said the Grey Weaver. "It is not for you nor for me to
criticize them--though I yet wonder what power could annul them to
permit your presence here!"

"I had no voice in your laws."

The old man peered at him in the dusk. "Has anyone, anywhere, a voice in
the laws?" he queried.

"In my country we have," retorted Dan.

"Madness!" growled Leucon. "Man-made laws! Of what use are man-made laws
with only man-made penalties, or none at all? If you shadows make a law
that the wind shall blow only from the east, does the west wind obey
it?"

"We do pass such laws," acknowledged Dan bitterly. "They may be stupid,
but they're no more unjust than yours."

"Ours," said the Grey Weaver, "are the unalterable laws of the world,
the laws of Nature. Violation is always unhappiness. I have seen it; I
have known it in another, in Galatea's mother, though Galatea is
stronger than she." He paused. "Now," he continued, "I ask only for
mercy; your stay is short, and I ask that you do no more harm than is
already done. Be merciful; give her no more to regret."

He rose and moved through the archway; when Dan followed a moment later,
he was already removing a square of silver from his device in the
corner. Dan turned silent and unhappy to his own chamber, where the jet
of water tinkled faintly as a distant bell.

Again he rose at the glow of dawn, and again Galatea was before him,
meeting him at the door with her bowl of fruit. She deposited her
burden, giving him a wan little smile of greeting, and stood facing him
as if waiting.

"Come with me, Galatea," he said.

"Where?"

"To the river bank. To talk."

They trudged in silence to the brink of Galatea's pool. Dan noted a
subtle difference in the world about him; outlines were vague, the thin
flower pipings less audible, and the very landscape was queerly
unstable, shifting like smoke when he wasn't looking at it directly. And
strangely, though