“Oh, you’re sentimental!” said Oceaxe contemptuously.  “Why do you need to make such a fuss over that man?  Life is life, all the world over, and one form is as good as another.  He was only to be made a tree, like a million other trees.  If they can endure the life, why can’t he?”

“And this is Ifdawn morality!”

Oceaxe began to grow angry.  “It’s you who have peculiar ideas.  You rave about the beauty of flowers and trees—­you think them divine.  But when it’s a question of taking on this divine, fresh, pure, enchanting loveliness yourself, in your own person, it immediately becomes a cruel and wicked degradation.  Here we have a strange riddle, in my opinion.”

“Oceaxe, you’re a beautiful, heartless wild beast—­nothing more.  If you weren’t a woman—­”

“Well”—­curling her lip—­“let us hear what would happen if I weren’t a woman?”

Maskull bit his nails.

“It doesn’t matter.  I can’t touch you—­though there’s certainly not the difference of a hair between you and your boy-husband.  For this you may thank my ’foreign preconceptions.’...  Farewell!”

He turned to go.  Oceaxe’s eyes slanted at him through their long lashes.

“Where are you off to, Maskull?”

“That’s a matter of no importance, for wherever I go it must be a change for the better.  You walking whirlpools of crime!”

“Wait a minute.  I only want to say this.  Blodsombre is just starting, and you had better stay here till the afternoon.  We can quickly put that body out of sight, and, as you seem to detest me so much, the place is big enough—­we needn’t talk, or even see each other.”

“I don’t wish to breathe the same air.”

“Singular man!” She was sitting erect and motionless, like a beautiful statue.  “And what of your wonderful interview with Surtur, and all the undone things which you set out to do?”

“You aren’t the one I shall speak to about that.  But”—­he eyed her meditatively—­“while I’m still here you can tell me this.  What’s the meaning of the expression on that corpse’s face?”

“Is that another crime, Maskull?  All dead people look like that.  Ought they not to?”

“I once heard it called ‘Crystalman’s face.’”

“Why not?  We are all daughters and sons of Crystalman.  It is doubtless the family resemblance.”

“It has also been told me that Surtur and Crystalman are one and the same.”

“You have wise and truthful acquaintances.”

“Then how could it have been Surtur whom I saw?” said Maskull, more to himself than to her.  “That apparition was something quite different.”

She dropped her mocking manner and, sliding imperceptibly toward him, gently pulled his arm.

“You see—­we have to talk.  Sit down beside me, and ask me your questions.  I’m not excessively smart, but I’ll try to be of assistance.”

Maskull permitted himself to be dragged down with soft violence.  She bent toward him, as if confidentially, and contrived that her sweet, cool, feminine breath should fan his cheek.