Among her fellow pensionnaires she met with discomforting illuminations,
which were fine discipline also, though if she herself had been a less
intellectual creature they might have been embittering. Without doubt
Betty, even at twelve years, was intellectual. Hers was the practical
working intellect which begins duty at birth and does not lay down its
tools because the sun sets. The little and big girls who wrote their
exercises at her side did not deliberately enlighten her, but she
learned from them in vague ways that it was not New York which was the
centre of the earth, but Paris, or Berlin, Madrid, London, or Rome.
Paris and London were perhaps more calmly positive of themselves than
other capitals, and were a little inclined to smile at the lack of
seriousness in other claims. But one strange fact was more predominant
than any other, and this was that New York was not counted as a
civilised centre at all; it had no particular existence. Nobody
expressed this rudely; in fact, it did not acquire the form of actual
statement at any time. It was merely revealed by amiable and ingenuous
unconsciousness of the circumstance that such a part of the world
expected to be regarded or referred to at all. Betty began early to
realise that as her companions did not talk of Timbuctoo or Zanzibar,
so they did not talk of New York. Stockholm or Amsterdam seemed,
despite their smallness, to be considered. No one denied the presence of
Zanzibar on the map, but as it conveyed nothing more than the impression
of being a mere geographical fact, there was no reason why one should
dwell on it in conversation. Remembering all she had left behind, the
crowded streets, the brilliant shop windows, the buzz of individual
people, there were moments when Betty ground her strong little teeth.
She wanted to express all these things, to call out, to explain, and
command recognition for them. But her cleverness showed to her that
argument or protestation would be useless. She could not make such
hearers understand. There were girls whose interest in America was