I have to admit that while waiting for Annette in the library up-stairs I was nervous. I was coming back to that family life in which I should have interests, affections, cares, responsibilities. For the past three years I had had no one to think of but myself; and if in that freedom there were heartaches, there were no complexities. Though it was not yet dark, the curtains were drawn and the room was lighted not only by a shaded lamp, but by the flicker of a fire. When Annette, wearing a tea-gown, appeared at last in the doorway she stood for a second to examine me. “Why, Jack!” she exclaimed, then. “I didn’t know you were in New York. Have you brought Frank with you?” “I am Frank,” I laughed, going forward to offer my hand. “I didn’t know Jack and I were so much alike. But you’re the second person who has said it within a few days.” “It’s your mustache, I think,” she explained as we shook hands. “I never saw you wear one before.” “I never did.” “Do sit down. They’ll bring tea in a minute. I’m so glad to see you. But if it’s not a rude question, tell me why you’ve been here all this time and never let me know.” It would be difficult to define the conditions which made Annette at the age of thirty-three what Cantyre styled one of the smartest women in New York, but the minute you saw her you felt that it was so. My uncle Van Elstine was only comfortably off; their house was not large; though they entertained a good deal, their manner of living was not showy. But my aunt Van Elstine had established the tradition—some women have the art of doing it—that whatever she had and did and said was “the thing,” and Annette, as her only child and heiress, had kept it up.