was now her maid, she was
vigilantly regardful of the looks which were turned upon her, and at
times, by straining her ears, she could even catch a word or two of
comment. Both looks and words were gratifying in the extreme. They
not only confirmed the previous verdict passed upon her beauty, but
they gave evidence to her keen intuition that, judged by a higher
standard, she had won a higher tribute.

Yet, ardent as this admiration was on the one side, and grateful as
it was on the other, there the matter stopped. To those who would
have approached her more closely Bettina set up a tacit barrier which
no one had been able to cross, and, after several days at sea, she
was still limited to the society of her maid. Those who had spoken to
her once had been so politely repelled that they had not spoken
again, and many of those who had felt inclined to speak had, on
coming nearer to her, refrained instinctively.

There was something, apart from her beauty, which attracted the eye
and the imagination in this tall girl in her deep mourning. This,
perhaps, was the twofold aspect which her different moods and
expressions gave to her. At one time she looked so profoundly sad,
dejected, almost despairing, that it was easy to connect her mourning
dress with the loss of what had been dearest to her. At another time
there was a buoyancy, animation, vividness, in her look which made
her black clothes seem incongruous in any other sense than that in
which a dark setting is sometimes used to throw into relief the
brilliancy of a jewel.

And these two outward manifestations did, in truth, represent the
dual nature which was Bettina's. Her mother, who had studied her with
a keen and affectionate insight, had often told her that the two
key-notes of her nature were love and ambition. So far, all the ardor
of Bettina's heart had been centred in her delicate, exquisite little
old mother, whom she had loved with something like frenzy; and it was
from the loss of this mother that she was now enduring a degree of
sorrow which might perhaps have overwhelmed her, had not the other
strong instinct of nature acted as an antidote. After some weeks of
what seemed like blank despair, the girl had roused herself with a
sort of desperation, and looked about her to see what was yet left
to her in life. Then it was that ambition had come to her rescue.
With a hardened feeling in her breast she told herself that she could
never love again in the way i