She regarded them for a moment with a frank wonder, the undying wonder of the Immortals at that perpetual decay and death and replacement which is the gist of human life. Then at the expression of their faces she seemed to recollect. "Of course," she said, and then with a transition that made pursuit difficult, she agreed with Adeline. "It _is_ different," she said. "It _is_ wonderful. One feels so alike, you know, and so different. That's just where it _is_ so wonderful. Do I look--? And yet you know I have never had my hair up, nor worn a dressing gown before today." "What do you wear?" asked Miss Glendower. "Very charming things, I suppose." "It's a different costume altogether," said the Sea Lady, brushing away a crumb. Just for a moment Mrs. Bunting regarded her visitor fixedly. She had, I fancy, in that moment, an indistinct, imperfect glimpse of pagan possibilities. But there, you know, was the Sea Lady in her wrapper, so palpably a lady, with her pretty hair brought up to date and such a frank innocence in her eyes, that Mrs. Bunting's suspicions vanished as they came. (But I am not so sure of Adeline.) CHAPTER THE THIRD THE EPISODE OF THE VARIOUS JOURNALISTS I The remarkable thing is that the Buntings really carried out the programme Mrs. Bunting laid down. For a time at least they positively succeeded in converting the Sea Lady into a credible human invalid, in spite of the galaxy of witnesses to the lady's landing and in spite of the severe internal dissensions that presently broke out. In spite, moreover, of the fact that one of the maids--they found out which only long after--told the whole story under vows to her very superior young man who told it next Sunday to a rising journalist who was sitting about on the Leas maturing a descriptive article. The rising journalist was incredulous. But he went about enquiring. In the end he thought it good enough to go upon. He found in several quarters a vague but sufficient rumour of a something; for the maid's young man was a conversationalist when he had anything to say. Finally the rising journalist went and sounded the people on the two chief Folkestone papers and found the thing had just got to them. They were inclined to pretend they hadn't heard of it, after the fashion of local papers when confronted by the abnormal, but the atmosphere of enterprise that surrounded the rising journalist woke them up. He perceived he had done so and that he had no time to lose. So while they engaged in inventing representatives to enquire, he went off and telephoned to the _Daily Gunfire_ and the _New Paper_. When they answered he was positive and earnest. He staked his reputation--the reputation of a rising journalist! "I swear there's something up," he said. "Get in first--that's all." He had some reputation, I say--and he had staked it. The _Daily Gunfire_ was sceptical but precise, and the _New Paper_ sprang a headline "A Mermaid at last!"