e _had_ dropped all
social ties after Papa's death. And Hendrick's name was an open sesame.
But even so it was surprising, and it was gratifying.

In appearance Annie had no problem. If she was not a beauty she was near
enough to being one. She was smart enough, and blonde enough, and
splendidly dressed enough to be instantly identifiable, and that was all
she desired. Financially, Annie had no problem. Her own inheritance and
her husband's great wealth silenced all question there. The Murison
pearls and the famous diamond tiara that her father had given her mother
years ago had come to Annie, but they were eclipsed by the Von Behrens
family jewels, and these were all hers, with the laces, and the ivories,
and the brocades. Life could give nothing more to Annie, but not many
women would have made so much of what Annie had. There was, far down and
out of sight, a little streak of the adventuress in her, and she never
stopped halfway.

A young wife, Annie had dutifully considered her nursery.

"Hendrick's is the elder line, of course, although it is the colonial
one," Annie had said, superintending a princely layette. The child was a
son, his father's image, and nobody who knew Annie was in the least
surprised that fortune had fallen in with her plans. It was the
magnificent Annie who was quoted as telling Madame Modiste to give her a
fitter who would not talk; it was Annie who decided what should be done
in recognizing the principals of the Jacqmain divorce, and that old
Floyd Densmore's actress-wife should not be accepted. Annie's neat and
quiet answer to a certain social acquaintance who remarked, in Annie's
little gallery, "I have seen the original of that picture, in one of the
European galleries," was still quoted by Annie's friends. "This _is_ the
original!" Annie had said quite simply and truthfully.

Leslie admired her aunt more than any one else in the world. Grandma was
old-fashioned, and Aunt Alice insignificant, in Leslie's eyes, but
stunning, arrogant, fearless Aunt Annie was the model upon which she
would have based herself if she had known how. Annie's quick
positiveness with her servants, her cool friendliness with big men, and
clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which
hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or
von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that was not, were
masterly in Leslie's eyes.

Annie might have been a strong royalist