“But you are not changed.”
“I am—I am a Maori. Imagine it! A Maori! I seem to feel different—to summon up strange, dim dreams. A tall old man with feathers on his head—yes—of a low, dark hut with smoke——”
“No—no,” protested Lumley, “that is your imagination. Your nerves have gone to pieces.”
“And I would always be thinking of that.”
The man felt curiously embarrassed—the girl was so matter-of-fact, so unlike herself; there was something unfamiliar, and almost stern about her.
“Your father is, of course, overwhelmed by the news,” she resumed. “I remember he asked to see the Loftus’s pedigree—think of my pedigree! Tell me, what does he say? Oh, speak to me plainly—he will not have me as a daughter-in-law?”
“He likes you personally, Rata, so does my mother; you know that, but—but——”
“Yes, it is a tremendous but—an impassable but—I understand.”
“Of course it will never be known beyond ourselves.”
“It will,” she interrupted. “My mother hugged herself with the same delusion—yet the secret crept out—and killed her!”