“And if it is,” said Lavarcham, “there is the more reason for you to be attentive and respectful and unseen. Go to your place and stay there until I send for you.”
She returned then, and, still simulating ill-temper, she dismissed Deirdre to her own room.
“You have not properly trimmed your finger-nails,” she scolded; “there is a black spot under one of them. You are not seemly. Go to your room at once, little blossom, and when you come back come so that your fosterer need not be ashamed of her charge.”
Saying so, she marched Deirdre to her room and thrust her in. Then she returned, and, seating herself at the embroidery from which she had driven her ward, she prepared to receive the king.
CHAPTER XVIII
“Well, my heart,” said the king, as he strode through the door of the Sunny Chamber.
With a keen glance he took in all that was to be seen. The woodwork of the walls and floors that were polished and polished again until they shone like crystal. The great carved chairs, each placed at the same prim distance from the other and from the wall; and the skins and furs that formed geometrical patterns and gradations of colour on the floor.
Conachúr shook his head as he regarded.
“Methodical,” he said, as he sat down.
“Orderly, master,” she corrected gently.