"A rael big thing, ma'am, such as nobody has ever seen before."
"Yes indeed, sir."
"Ask all the big people on the island—Nessy MacLeod shall send you a list of them."
"I will, sir."
"That'll do for the present—I guess I must be going now, or old Conrad will be agate of me. So long, gel, so long."
I was silenced, I was helpless, I was ashamed.
I did not know then, what now I know, that, besides the desire of celebrating the forthcoming birth of an heir, my father had another and still more secret object—that of throwing dust in the eyes of his advocates, bankers, and insular councillors, who (having expected him to make money for them by magic) were beginning to whisper that all was not well with his financial schemes.
I did not know then, what now I know, that my father was at that moment the most tragic figure in Ellan except myself, and that, shattered in health and shaken in fortune, he was indulging in this wild extravagance equally to assert his solvency and to gratify his lifelong passion under the very wing of Death.
But oh, my wild woe, my frantic prayers! It was almost as if Satan himself were torturing me.
The one terror of the next few days was that my husband might return home, for I knew that at the first moment of his arrival the whole world of make-believe which my father and Alma were setting up around me would tumble about my head like a pack of cards.