Certain hours and days were absolutely her own to do what she chose with.

She had never asked for such privileges, but the Duchess with an almost imperceptible adjustment had arranged that they should be hers.

Sometimes she had taken Dowie away on little holidays to the sea side, often she spent hours in picture galleries or great libraries or museums.

In attendance on the Duchess she had learned to know all the wonders and picturesqueness of her London and its environments, and often with Dowie as her companion she wandered about curious and delightful places and, pleased as a child, looked in at her kind at work or play.
While nations shuddered and gasped, cannon belched forth, thunder and flaming, battleships crashed together and sudden death was almost as unintermitting as the ticking of the clock, among the thousands of pairing souls and bodies drawn together in a new world where for the time being all sound was stilled but the throb of pulsing hearts, there moved with the spellbound throng one boy and girl whose dream of being was a thing of entrancement.
Every few days they met in some wonderfully chosen and always quiet spot.

Donal knew and loved the half unknown remote corners of the older London too.