as completely as Maeve desired. Of his courage there could be no doubt. He had proved that on many an opponent, and although there were better soldiers there were few who breasted danger with such gay violence. As to his generosity, that might be questioned by one so whole-hearted as Maeve, for although he would give often and largely there might be more of calculation than of spontaneity in the gift. But it is in the third of her stipulations that Conachúr would probably be found wanting; for, given his temperament, his furious passions, his habit of command, and his endless cleverness, he should have been a very madman for jealousy. All clever men are jealous: it is one of the forms of egoism. He must have tracked the discontented lady with the persistence of a bloodhound [Pg 26] and all the casual anonymity of a husband. He would have been always just there in the place where she least desired to see him; and it is possible that gentlemen on whom her eyes rested approvingly would disappear before her eyes had adequately rested on them. It may have seemed to Maeve that some one like Conachúr was standing at every corner in Emain Macha,[4] and that at the few corners where he was not his conversation-woman was, or some other withered crone was there blaring hideously on her yellow tusk and making a noise that would annoy a young woman, but which might absolutely terrify a young man. [Pg 26] She reviewed the situation and all the subsidiary situations. She thought of what her father, the High King, would say, and knew how he should be answered and by what arts he might be made an ally. She thought of what her two sisters would urge, but she thought of them negligently, considering that they would be more anxious to avoid than to meet her. And she thought of her third sister, about whom she need speculate no more; and Maeve’s hand that [Pg 27] struck the blow had been as steady as was her mind that contemplated its memory. Conachúr had come to demand vengeance and had exacted marriage. That was his vengeance, and she thought of the cold-minded, furious-blooded king in every alternation from astonishment to rage, and in every mood except that of fear, for she was not afraid of him, or of anything that lived. [Pg 27] [4] Emain Macha = pronounced Evan Maha. [Pg 28] [Pg 28]
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