of comparison. With the complete
harmony and perfect balance of the singular thing, it would be folly for
the rest of the world to compete. A human being who had lived in poverty
for half a lifetime, might, if suddenly endowed with limitless fortune,
retain, to a certain extent, balance of mind; but the same creature
having lived the same number of years a wholly unlovely thing, suddenly
awakening to the possession of entire physical beauty, might find the
strain upon pure sanity greater and the balance less easy to preserve.
The relief from the conscious or unconscious tension bred by the sense
of imperfection, the calm surety of the fearlessness of meeting in
any eye a look not lighted by pleasure, would be less normal than the
knowledge that no wish need remain unfulfilled, no fancy ungratified.
Even at sixteen Betty was a long-limbed young nymph whose small head,
set high on a fine slim column of throat, might well have been crowned
with the garland of some goddess of health and the joy of life. She was
light and swift, and being a creature of long lines and tender curves,
there was pleasure in the mere seeing her move. The cut of her spirited
lip, and delicate nostril, made for a profile at which one turned to
look more than once, despite one's self. Her hair was soft and black and
repeated its colour in the extravagant lashes of her childhood, which
made mysterious the changeful dense blue of her eyes. They were eyes
with laughter in them and pride, and a suggestion of many deep things
yet unstirred. She was rather unusually tall, and her body had the
suppleness of a young bamboo. The deep corners of her red mouth curled
generously, and the chin, melting into the fine line of the lovely
throat, was at once strong and soft and lovely. She was a creature of
harmony, warm richness of colour, and brilliantly alluring life.

When her school days were over she returned to New York and gave
herself into her mother's hands. Her mother's kindness of heart and
sweet-tempered lovingness were touching things to Bettina. In the midst
of her millions Mrs. Vanderpoel was wholly unworldly. Bettina knew that
she felt a perpetual homesickness when she allowed herself to think of
the daughter who seemed lost to her, and the girl's realisation of this
caused her to wish to be especially affectionate and amenable. She was
glad that she was tall and beautiful, not merely because such physical
gifts added to the colour and agreeableness