"Him?" sneered the demon. "Can't see a wizard coming here. They can't have anything to do with the number eight." The demon slapped a hand across his mouth guiltily.
Would she kill herself, perhaps? Madame Dupont hovered on guard about the door of the nursery for fear that the mother in her fit of insanity might attempt some harm to her child.
His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had bought his nephew Soames' ill-starred house and settled into it here at Robin Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son and his grandchildren--June, and the little ones of the second marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of London and the cackle of Forsyte 'Change,' free of his boards, in a delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly. All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in his heart during that long and tragic business of June, Soames, Irene his wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out. Even June had thrown off her melancholy at last--witness this travel in Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother. Curiously perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful, yet blank, because his son was not there. Jo was never anything but a comfort and a pleasure to him nowadays--an amiable chap; but women, somehow--even the best--got a little on one's nerves, unless of course one admired them.
Chade gave me a look of quiet approval. "So I told Shrewd. But he said to me that I must say to you that he will settle this. This time the King works his own justice. You must wait and be satisfied."
"Him?" sneered the demon. "Can't see a wizard coming here. They can't have anything to do with the number eight." The demon slapped a hand across his mouth guiltily.
Some were in use, if likely not for the purposes they had been made. The stout white rod that the Accepted held while taking the Three Oaths on being raised to Aes Sedai was a ter'angreal, binding them to the oaths as surely as if they had been bred in the bone. Another ter'angreal was the site of the final test before a novice was raised to the Accepted. There were others, including many no one could make work at all, and many others that seemed to have no practical use.