LAVARCHAM. I’m after serving you two score of years, and I’ll tell you this night, Conchubor, she’s little call to mind an old woman when she has the birds to school her, and the pools in the rivers where she goes bathing in the sun. I’ll tell you if you seen her that time, with her white skin, and her red lips, and the blue water and the ferns about her, you’d know, maybe, and you greedy itself, it wasn’t for your like she was born at all. CONCHUBOR. It’s little I heed for what she was born; she’ll be my comrade, surely. [_He examines her workbox._ LAVARCHAM. — _sinking into sadness again._ — I’m in dread so they were right saying she’d bring destruction on the world, for it’s a poor thing when you see a settled man putting the love he has for a young child, and the love he has for a full woman, on a girl the like of her; and it’s a poor thing, Conchubor, to see a High King, the way you are this day, prying after her needles and numbering her lines of thread. CONCHUBOR. — _getting up._ — Let you not be talking too far and you old itself. (_Walks across room and back._) Does she know the troubles are foretold? LAVARCHAM. — _in the tone of the earlier talk._ — I’m after telling her one time and another, but I’d do as well speaking to a lamb of ten weeks and it racing the hills. . . . It’s not the dread of death or troubles that would tame her like. CONCHUBOR. — _he looks out._ — She’s coming now, and let you walk in and keep Fergus till I speak with her a while. LAVARCHAM. — _going left._ — If I’m after vexing you itself, it’d be best you weren’t taking her hasty or scolding her at all. CONCHUBOR. — _very stiffly._ — I’ve no call to. I’m well pleased she’s light and airy. LAVARCHAM. — _offended at his tone._ — Well pleased is it? (_With a snort of irony_) It’s a queer thing the way the likes of me do be telling the truth, and the wise are lying all times. [_She goes into room on left. Conchubor arranges himself before a mirror for a moment, then goes a little to the left and waits. Deirdre comes in poorly dressed, with a little bag and a bundle of twigs in her arms. She is astonished for a moment when she sees Conchubor; then she makes a courtesy to him, and goes to the hearth without any embarrassment._ CONCHUBOR. The gods save you, Deirdre. I have come up bringing you rings and jewels from Emain Macha. DEIRDRE. The gods save you. CONCHUBOR. What have you brought from the hills? DEIRDRE. — _quite self-possessed._ — A bag of nuts, and twigs for our fires at the dawn of day. CONCHUBOR. — _showing annoyance in spite of himself._ — And it’s that way you’re picking up the manners will fit you to be Queen of Ulster? DEIRDRE. — _made a little defiant by his tone._ — I have no wish to be a queen. CONCHUBOR. — _almost sneeringly._ — You’d wish to be dressing in your duns and grey, and you herding your geese or driving your calves to their shed — like the common lot scattered in the glens.