Bettina, who was still in short frocks, took her up.
"What is she not ?" she asked.
"Ah!--it is difficult to explain--to Americans.

It is really not exactly a fault.

But she is not of his world." "But if he does not like that," said Bettina coolly, "why did he let her buy him and pay for him ?" It was young and brutal, but there were times when the business perspicuity of the first Reuben Vanderpoel, combining with the fiery, wounded spirit of his young descendant, rendered Bettina brutal.

She saw certain unadorned facts with unsparing young eyes and wanted to state them.

After her frocks were lengthened, she learned how to state them with more fineness of phrase, but even then she was sometimes still rather unsparing.
In this case her companion, who was not fiery of temperament, only coloured slightly.
"It was not quite that," she answered.