She was the last child to ride in cars driven by liveried chauffeurs, guarded by private detectives in overcoats and fedoras. She was the last to be born before the Depression, when the Vanderbilt riches seemed as limitless and eternal as the stars in the sky. She knew that vanished world, with all its opulence and uncertainty and coldness. She had lived her entire life in the public eye, and she was the last Vanderbilt whose birth and obituary would make the front page of newspapers around the world. She was a symbol of an era, of a set of values or experiences—the way that money can bend and
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