rather than a two-stepped process. This is unusual behavior for a fluid at volume fraction $\phi
\sim 0.6$ (at least at first sight).

The intermediate, $\beta$, and long-time, $\alpha$, decay in a dense hard-sphere fluid are attributed to particles ‘rattling’ in their local neighbor cages, and escaping from these cages, respectively [@HSglass]. Attraction hinders the ‘rattling’ by trapping particles in potential wells, but accelerates the cage opening by clustering. At some polymer concentration (or attraction strength), the two time scales coincide. If at this point the attraction alone is not enough to trap the system in an non-ergodic state, we will observe the melting of the repulsive glass into an ergodic fluid dominated by attraction. This is the case for sample C, where the $\alpha$ and $\beta$ decays are barely distinguishable in the DSF. At higher polymer concentrations, the cage concept is no longer appropriate for describing the particle dynamics — for it to be valid, a particle has to ‘rattle’ many times in a cage before it opens. Note that this is a distinctive feature of dense fluids with [*short-range*]{} attraction. In a dense fluid with [*long-range*]{} attraction, the effective potential well experienced by any particle due to its 