Annan’s left-hand neighbour at the long table was a boy officer whose aëroplane had landed successfully on Pike’s Peak, to the glory of the service and the star-spangled banner.
On his right a young man named Bruce ate cold lobster languidly. He was going to Newport to paint a great and formidable lady—“gild the tiger-lily,” as Annan suggested, to the horror of Mr. Bruce.
She had been a very great lady. Traditionally she was still a social power. But she had seen everything, done everything, and now, grown old and bad-tempered, she passed her declining days in making endless lists of people she did not want to know.
She was Annan’s great-aunt. She had never forgiven him for becoming a common public entertainer.
Once Annan wrote her: “I’ve a list of people you have overlooked and whom you certainly would not wish to know.”
Swallowing her dislike she wrote briefly requesting him to send her the list.
He sent her the New York Directory. The breach was complete.
“What can you offer me that I cannot offer myself?” Annan had inquired impudently, at their final interview.
“If you come out of that Greenwich gutter and behave as though you were not insane I can make you the most eligible young man in New York,” she had replied.
He preferred his “gutter,” and she washed her gem-laden hands of him.