Her mother, a worried little woman, suffered most. The father was a traveling salesman and not often home, and Mrs. Bates kept from him as much of Henrietta's misdoing as she could, killing herself eventually, crushing herself under the weight of the burden. She would have worried herself away earlier than she did had the Bates family not moved as often as it did. As Henrietta reached high-school age, and later, the Bates family was moving continually, Mr. Bates changing from one job to another and each time taking his family to his new headquarters. Each time Mrs. Bates tried to obscure herself and Henrietta, but never with much success because Henrietta did not wish to be obscured. One particularly unfortunate lie got Henrietta expelled from a high school she was attending and she was sent to a private school. It was a strict school, and during her entire stay there she met no young men, but her letters to her friends and to her mother were filled with romantic incidents. It was then her famous Billy Vane first appeared in her lies. Lying--whole-souled, brazen lying--has a strange, half-hypnotic effect on many hearers who are by nature truthful and kind-hearted, as quite a few human beings are. When a man looks me full in the eyes and lies to me, I have a feeling of shame. I want to lower my eyes and not look straight into his. I say to myself, “He is lying, and I know he is lying, and I am ashamed to look him in the eyes; he will see in my eyes that I know he is lying.” Then I say to myself, “But if I look down he will know I am looking down because I know he is lying.” So I continue to look him straight in the eyes, saying to myself, “I know you are lying, but I will not let you know I know it.” Then I say to myself, “It does not matter if you _are_ lying as long as I know you are lying”; and presently I am sorry for him, as a mother is sorry for a cripple child, and I pity him, and pity is akin to love. Some whole-souled, brazen, cheerful liars are among the best-loved men in the world. We know we are being lied to, but we are also being charmed, as the innocent bird is charmed by the serpent. Although Henrietta never understood it, the ease with which she made herself believed was one reason why she continued to be such a liar. Her eyes compelled belief. No one ever doubted her lies at the moment they were being told. When her eyes looked straight into the hearer's eyes there could be no doubting; that sometimes came later when the self-hypnotism was dissipated. Had Henrietta--especially when she grew older and was a woman--met doubt or distrust when she told her fanciful tales, she might have faltered, thought, and stopped. She might have been cured.