What were you like when she
married?"
Bettina sat down, smiling and looking, indeed, quite incredibly lovely.
She was capable of a warmth and a sweetness which were as embracing as
other qualities she possessed were powerful.
"I was eight years old," she said. "I was a rude little girl, with
long legs and a high, determined voice. I know I was rude. I remember
answering back."
"I seem to have heard that you did not like your brother-in-law, and
that you were opposed to the marriage."
"Imagine the undisciplined audacity of a child of eight 'opposing' the
marriage of her grown-up sister. I was quite capable of it. You see in
those days we had not been trained at all (one had only been allowed
tremendous liberty), and interfered conversationally with one's elders
and betters at any moment. I was an American little girl, and American
little girls were really--they really were!" with a laugh, whose musical
sound was after all wholly non-committal.
"You did not treat Sir Nigel Anstruthers as one of your betters."
"He was one of my elders, at all events, and becomingness of bearing
should have taught me to hold my little tongue. I am giving some thought
now to the kind of thing I must invent as a suitable apology when I find
him a really delightful person, full of virtues and accomplishments.
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