with money were ostentatious and always laying stress upon the amount of their possessions.  She had no conception of the primeval simpleness of their attitude in such matters, and that no ceremonies were necessary save the process of transferring sufficiently large sums as though they were the mere right of the recipients.  She was taught to understand this later.  In the meantime, however, ready as she would have been to give large sums if she had known how, she was terrified by the thought that it might be possible that she could be deprived of her bank account and reduced to the condition of a sort of dependent upon the humours of her lately acquired relations.  She thought over this a good deal, and would have found immense relief if she dared have consulted anyone.  But she could not make up her mind to reveal her unhappiness to her people.  She had been married so recently, everybody had thought her marriage so delightful, she could not bear that her father and mother should be distressed by knowing that she was wretched.  She also reflected with misery that New York would talk the matter over excitedly and that finally the newspapers would get hold of the gossip.  She could even imagine interviewers calling at the house in Fifth Avenue and endeavouring to obtain particulars of the situation.  Her father would be angry and refuse to give them, but that would make no difference; the newspapers would give them and everybody would read what they said, whether it was true or not.  She could not possibly write facts, she thought, so her poor little letters were restrained and unlike herself, and to the warm-hearted souls in New York, even appearing stiff and unaffectionate, as if her aristocratic surroundings had chilled her love for them.  In fact, it became far from easy for her to write at all, since Sir Nigel so disapproved of her interest in the American mail.  His objections had indeed taken the form of his feeling himself quite within his rights when he occasionally intercepted letters from her relations, with a view of finding out whether they contained criticisms of himself, which would betray that she had been guilty of indiscreet confidences.  He discovered that she had not apparently been so guilty, but it was evident that there were moments when Mrs. Vanderpoel was uneasy and disposed to ask anxious questions.  When this occurred he destroyed the letters, and as a result of this precaution on his part her motherly queries seemed to be ignored, and she several times shed tears in the belief that Rosy had grown so patrician that she was capable of snubbing her mother in her resentment at feeling her privacy intruded upon and an unrefined effusiveness shown.

“I just feel as if she was beginning not to care about us at all, Betty,” she said.  “I couldn’t have believed it of Rosy.  She was always such an affectionate girl.”

“I don’t believe it now,” replied Betty sharply.  “Rosy couldn’t grow hateful and stuck up.  It’s that nasty Nigel I know it is.”