plane.  There are millions of pretty women, and billions of personable men, but the man or woman of entire physical beauty may cross one’s pathway only once in a lifetime—­or not at all.  In the latter case it is natural to doubt the absolute truth of the rumours that the thing exists.  The abnormal creature seems a mere freak of nature and may chance to be angel, criminal, total insipidity, virago or enchanter, but let such an one enter a room or appear in the street, and heads must turn, eyes light and follow, souls yearn or envy, or sink under the discouragement 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