But for Deirdre a night went by which to the end of her days she would not care to remember.
She had seen the king at last: that being, all memory and dream, half monster and half baby, whom she remembered from Lavarcham’s endless tale. She had seen the grave brow, the graver eyes, the bushy, reddish-yellow hair looped back to the slope of his poll, and the yellow beard cleft at the centre and foaming in two points to the breast. She could not have thought that a man might be so huge, so steady, so masterful. He was a being to whom one might pray, or for whom one might die joyfully. If a lord came striding from the Shí surely he would look as Conachúr did: massive and dazzling and wonderful; with an eye from which one winced as from the sun, and with a voice that trolled and astonished like the note of a beaten drum. She remembered his hand that could hold both of her own with ease, and the great ridge of his shoulders, sloping away like the easy run and fall of a mountain.
And this terrific being claimed her as his wife!
Nothing but terror filled her heart at that prospect, for she could not see him in any terms of intimacy or affection. He was and would remain as remote as her childhood, and no mere nearness could make him present. And he would be as unaccountable as are the elements that smile to-day and rage to-morrow in hurricane. What woman could reckon his parts or his total? He was like some god that had come out of the hills to astonish and terrify.
And there was Naoise!
As her memory retrieved the beloved name her heart went bustling to her throat, and she sat raging and terrified.
It was not that he would be defrauded of her: it would be his own business to be woeful on that count; but she would be defrauded of him, and her proper lack was as yet sufficient for her mood, for lacking him what could be returned to her? Her hands went cold and her mouth dry as she faced such a prospect.
The youth who was hers! Who had no terrors for her! Who was her equal in years and frolic! She could laugh with him, and at him. She could chide him and love him. She could give to him and withhold. She could be his mother as well as his wife. She could annoy him and forgive him. For between them there was such an equality of time and rights that neither could dream of mastery or feel a grief against the other. He was her beloved, her comrade, the very red of her heart, and her choice choice.
Deirdre leaped from the bed, but she could not leap from her thoughts, and she could not attempt the crazy and mazy corridors of her home to fly to him; for the excited household was clattering and chattering in the corridors, and she could no more escape by them than a bird can escape by its cage.
It was not until two nights had passed that she could dare the wall; and in the intervening days she must listen to Lavarcham, endless in caution and advice.