“It is true, master,” said Lavarcham humbly.
“It is with such an eye that I shall look on your babe to-morrow.”
“Alas! my poor Deirdre,” said Lavarcham.
“The Troubler has not given much trouble yet,” laughed Conachúr.
CHAPTER XIII
Lavarcham went home.
The sense of urgency and unmeditated haste which for some time had been in her mind was greater than ever, as though she were being pressed to an action, thoroughly comprehended indeed, but for which she had no plan and no explanation. There was something to be done; she knew what it was but could not state it: and there was also something which prevented its accomplishment; and she was similarly aware and unaware of what this latter obstruction was.
This sense of being controlled without being consulted, of being given a key without being told what door it opens, is common to all people who plan and are not sufficiently disengaged to observe that they are being overridden by their own contrivance; for there is a point up to which we control desire, but at the stage where other people’s interests intersect ours those alien desires and our own meet: they cease to be many and become one thing, and we are ridden in community by the jinn we liberated. But we know with a profound, unconscious certitude all that is happening, and are enlisted for those intuitive purposes beyond the control of interest or prudence or reason. Habit alone remains to guide us in these trackless ways, and it was her habit of verbal reticence which calmed Lavarcham.
Her first impulse had been to tell Deirdre with a rush that the king was coming to see her on the next day. Her second impulse was cautious. If I tell this, she thought, the child will not sleep all night, and she will be heavy-eyed and dull before the king.
Therefore she did not mention the matter to Deirdre.