“It was time Ludlow married some girl with money,” she heard said of one such union. “He had been playing the fool ever since he came into the estate. Horses and a lot of stupid women. He had come some awful croppers during the last ten years. Good-enough looking girl, they tell me--the American he has married--tremendous lot of money. Couldn't have picked it up on this side. English young women of fortune are not looking for that kind of thing. Poor old Billy wasn't good enough.”
Bettina told the story to her father when they next met. She had grown into a tall young creature by this time. Her low, full voice was like a bell and was capable of ringing forth some fine, mellow tones of irony.
“And in America we are pleased,” she said, “and flatter ourselves that we are receiving the proper tribute of adoration of our American wit and beauty. We plume ourselves on our conquests.”
“No, Betty,” said her father, and his reflective deliberation had meaning. “There are a lot of us who don't plume ourselves particularly in these days. We are not as innocent as we were when this sort of thing began. We are not as innocent as we were when Rosy was married.” And he sighed and rubbed his forehead with the handle of his pen. “Not as innocent as we were when Rosy was married,” he repeated.
Bettina went to him and slid her fine young arm round his neck. It was a long, slim, round arm with a wonderful power to caress in its curves. She kissed Vanderpoel's lined cheek.
“Have you had time to think much about Rosy?” she said.
“I've not had time, but I've done it,” he answered. “Anything that hurts your mother hurts me. Sometimes she begins to cry in her sleep, and when I wake her she tells me she has been dreaming that she has seen Rosy.”
“I have had time to think of her,” said Bettina. “I have heard so much of these things. I was at school in Germany when Annie Butterfield and Baron von Steindahl were married. I heard it talked about there, and then my mother sent me some American papers.”
She laughed a little, and for a moment her laugh did not sound like a girl's.
“Well, it's turned out badly enough,” her father commented. “The papers had plenty to say about it later. There wasn't much he was too good to do to his wife, apparently.”