“A man grows directly from the boy he was,” she continued. “He keeps the boy you knew even when he is an old man. But a girl grows suddenly at an angle to all that she was. She becomes a stranger in a year.”
“Hum!” he scoffed.
“The Deirdre we knew is dead, and some weather-wise, weather-wasted woman will look at me with unknown eyes and say, ‘How do you do.’ I shall not know how to talk to her,” said Lavarcham.
“If it is so we shall see it so,” said Conachúr. “Go now and send me Conall, and then the others in the order I told you.”
Lavarcham left the room.
When she was beyond the king’s hearing she stood for a good five minutes musing deeply within herself; listening as it were to her heart, to her instincts, to that monitor on whom we call when the times are momentous and doubtful and there is no other help but our own to be summoned. She sighed inaudibly, tremulously, and went about her business.
Conall Cearnach stood in the doorway.
“Good, O Chief and King!” he saluted.
“Life and happiness!” Conachúr replied briskly. “Sit here, my heart, for there is but one chair. I shall walk up and down while we discuss this business.”