Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had not know that the Power—the Thing—drew them with its greatest strength because among myriads of atoms they two were created for oneness. Enraptured and unaware they played together, their souls and bodies drawn nearer each other every hour.
So it was that—without being portentous—one may say that when an unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly fitted young man turned involuntarily in the particular London ball room in which Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ daughter watched the dancers, and looked unintentionally into the eyes of a girl standing for a moment near the wide entrance doors, the inexplicable and unconquerable Force reconnected its currents again.
Donal Muir’s eyes only widened a little for a second’s time. He had not known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not know why he was conscious of something which startled him a little. You could not actually stare at a girl because your eyes chanced to get entangled in hers for a second as you danced past her. It was true she was of a startling prettiness and there was something—. Yes, there was something which drew the eye and—. He did not know what it was. It had actually given him a sort of electric shock. He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked puzzled for a moment.
“You saw Miss Lawless,” said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might have been called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. “I know, you saw Miss Lawless—the pretty one near the door.”
“There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can’t lift your eyes without seeing one,” Donal answered. “What a lot of them!” (The sense of having received a slight electric shock made you feel that you must look again and find out what had caused it, he was thinking.)
“She is the one with the eyelashes.”
“I have eyelashes—so have you,” looking down at hers with a very taking expression. Hers were in fact nice ones.
“But ours are not two inches long and they don’t make a big soft circle round our eyes when we look at anyone.”
“Please look up and let me see,” said Donal. “When I asked you to dance with me I thought—”
What a “way” he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But “perhaps it was the eyelashes” was passing through Donal’s mind. Very noticeable eyelashes were rather arresting.