xplained to us we grow interested,
and Crimthann became, by instruction, as astonished as the king was.

"In good truth," said he, "the woman is driving two horses."

"Had you not observed it before?" his master asked with kindly malice.

"I had observed but not noticed," the young man admitted.

"Further," said the king, "surmise is aroused in us when we discover a
woman far from a house; for you will have both observed and noticed that
women are home-dwellers, and that a house without a woman or a woman
without a house are imperfect objects, and although they be but half
observed, they are noticed on the double."

"There is no doubting it," the prince answered from a knitted and
thought-tormented brow.

"We shall ask this woman for information about herself," said the king
decidedly.

"Let us do so," his ward agreed

"The king's majesty uses the words 'we' and 'us' when referring to
the king's majesty," said Dermod, "but princes who do not yet
rule territories must use another form of speech when referring to
themselves."

"I am very thoughtless," said Crimthann humbly.

The king kissed him on both cheeks.

"Indeed, my dear heart and my son, we are not scolding you, but you must
try not to look so terribly thoughtful when you think. It is part of the
art of a ruler."

"I shall never master that hard art," lamented his fosterling.

"We must all master it," Dermod replied. "We may think with our minds
and with our tongues, but we should never think with our noses and with
our eyebrows."

The woman in the chariot had drawn nigh to the ford by which they were
standing, and, without pause, she swung her steeds into the shallows and
came across the river in a tumult of foam and spray.

"Does she not drive well?" cried Crimthann admiringly.

"When you are older," the king counselled him, "you will admire that
which is truly admirable, for although the driving is good the lady is
better."

He continued with enthusiasm.

"She is in truth a wonder of the world and an endless delight to the
eye."

She was all that and more, and, as she took the horses through the river
and lifted them up the bank, her flying hair and parted lips and all the
young strength and grace of her body went into the king's eye and could
not easily come out again.

Nevertheless, it was upon his ward that the lady's gaze rested, and if
the king could scarcely look away from her, she could, but only with an
equal effort, look away