It may also be accepted as a fact that to this festivity given for the pleasure of Mrs.
Gareth-Lawless' daughter, she might not have chosen to assume the responsibility of extending him an invitation.

She knew something of his mother and had sometimes discussed her with her old friend, Lord Coombe.
She admired Helen Muir greatly and was also much touched by certain aspects of her maternity.

What Lord Coombe had told her of the meeting of the two children in the Gardens, of their innocent child passion of attraction for each other, and of the unchildlike tragedy their enforced parting had obviously been to both had at once deeply interested and moved her.

Coombe had only been able to relate certain surface incidents connected with the matter, but they had been incidents not easy to forget and from which unusual things might be deduced.

No! She would not have felt prepared to be the first to deliberately throw these two young people across each other's paths at this glowing moment of their early blooming--knowing as she did Helen Muir's strongly anxious desire to keep them apart.
She had seen Donal Muir several times as the years had passed and had not been blind to the physical beauty and allure of charm the rest of the world saw and proclaimed with suitable adjectives.