Davey had stared at Deirdre as though he were trying to read in her face what his heart ached to know, and she had been waiting for him to read and know, waiting for the first sound of his voice with a tremulous expectancy. A moment more might have ended the year-long griefs and heartache between them. But Conal spoke, and Davey wheeled out of the kitchen.
Conal strode over to the table near which Davey bad been. He swung his leg over it, and watched Deirdre as she put cups and saucers, plates and knives on one end of it. She cut some bread and buttered it.
There was a light in her eyes, a colour in her cheeks. She had watched Davey go with a little gesture of impatience, a fluttering sigh. Conal saw that. She turned to him gaily, poured out tea for him, chattering, but avoided his eyes. He watched her with a smouldering suspicion.
Suddenly he leant forward and caught her hand. His swart, leathern face swung towards her; the brilliant, hawk eyes of Conal, the Fighter, leapt into hers.
"You're to marry me, Deirdre," he said, his voice hoarse and throbbing in his throat.
She shrank from him with a little breathless exclamation.
"Don't do that," he cried passionately. "Don't look at me like that, Deirdre."
"Conal!" she gasped.
In his eyes rose the appeal of dumb, unfathomable, devouring tenderness.
"Say you'll love me ... say you will, Deirdre," he begged.