"She will have to get used to you," Ughtred kept saying. "She will have
to get used to thinking things."
"I will be careful," Bettina answered. "She shall not be troubled. I did
not come to trouble her."
CHAPTER XIII
ONE OF THE NEW YORK DRESSES
As she went down the staircase later, on her way to dinner, Miss
Vanderpoel saw on all sides signs of the extent of the nakedness of
the land. She was in a fine old house, stripped of most of its saleable
belongings, uncared for, deteriorating year by year, gradually going to
ruin. One need not possess particular keenness of sight to observe
this, and she had chanced to see old houses in like condition in other
countries than England. A man-servant, in a shabby livery, opened the
drawing-room door for her. He was not a picturesque servitor of fallen
fortunes, but an awkward person who was not accustomed to his duties.
Betty wondered if he had been called in from the gardens to meet the
necessities of the moment. His furtive glance at the tall young woman
who passed him, took in with sudden embarrassment the fact that she
plainly did not belong to the dispirited world bounded by Stornham
Court. Without sparkling gems or trailing richness in her wake, she was
suggestively splendid.
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