Salter had just been watching a luxuriously cared-for little invalid woman being carried on deck in a reclining chair, when his attention was attracted by the sound of trampling hoofs and rolling wheels.Two noticeably big and smart carriages had driven up to the stopping-place for vehicles.They were gorgeously of the latest mode, and their tall, satin-skinned horses jangled silver chains and stepped up to their noses.
"Here come the Worthingtons, whosoever they may be,"thought Salter."The fine up-standing young woman is, no doubt, the multi-millionairess."The fine, up-standing young woman WAS the multi-millionairess.
Bettina walked up the gangway in the sunshine, and the passengers upon the upper deck craned their necks to look at her.Her carriage of her head and shoulders invariably made people turn to look.
"My, ain't she fine-looking!" exclaimed an excited lady beholder above."I guess that must be Miss Vanderpoel, the multi-millionaire's daughter.Jane told me she'd heard she was crossing this trip."Bettina heard her.She sometimes wondered if she was ever pointed out, if her name was ever mentioned without the addition of the explanatory statement that she was the multi-millionaire's daughter.As a child she had thought it ridiculous and tiresome, as she had grown older she had felt that only a remarkable individuality could surmount a fact so ever present.
It was like a tremendous quality which overshadowed everything else.
"It wounds my vanity, I have no doubt," she had said to her father."Nobody ever sees me, they only see you and your millions and millions of dollars."Salter watched her pass up the gangway.The phase through which he was living was not of the order which leads a man to dwell upon the beautiful and inspiriting as expressed by the female image.Success and the hopefulness which engender warmth of soul and quickness of heart are required for the development of such allurements.He thought of the Vanderpoel millions as the lady on the deck had thought of them, and in his mind somehow the girl herself appeared to express them.The rich up-springing sweep of her abundant hair, her height, her colouring, the remarkable shade and length of her lashes, the full curve of her mouth, all, he told himself, looked expensive, as if even nature herself had been given carte blanche, and the best possible articles procured for the money.