"I wonder, Betty," he said quite deliberately, "if you know how handsome
you are?"

"Yes," answered Bettina. "I think so. And I am tall. It is the fashion
to be tall now. It was Early Victorian to be little. The Queen brought
in the 'dear little woman,' and now the type has gone out."

"They will come to look at you pretty soon," said Vanderpoel. "What
shall you say then?"

"I?" said Bettina, and her voice sounded particularly low and mellow.
"I have a little monomania, father. Some people have a monomania for one
thing and some for another. Mine is for NOT taking a bargain from the
ducal remnant counter."



CHAPTER VI

AN UNFAIR ENDOWMENT

To Bettina Vanderpoel had been given, to an extraordinary extent, the
extraordinary thing which is called beauty--which is a thing
entirely set apart from mere good looks or prettiness. This thing
is extraordinary because, if statistics were taken, the result would
probably be the discovery that not three human beings in a million
really possess it. That it should be bestowed at all--since it is so
rare--seems as unfair a thing as appears to the mere mortal mind the
bestowal of unbounded wealth, since it quite as inevitably places the