She became possessed of a love for the stage even before Gerard Fynes came upon the scene.

The beginning of it all was the rumour that her mother was now an actress; yet the root-cause was far down in a temperament responsive to all artistic things.
The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements of her nature like the shutter of a camera.

It let in a world of light upon unexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not before been active.

She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes.

He had the distance from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distance was the mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom she had a longing which grew greater as the years went on.
Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his short play-acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant for some name, for the description of some actress which would seem to be a clue to the lost spirit of her life.