alled the salute of a plumed
cavalier.

When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with keen
curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's hands, the
materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed directly into a
large, square hall with a gallery on three sides, studio fashion. This
opened at one end into a Dutch breakfast room, beyond which was the
large dining room. At the other end of the hall was the music room.
There was a smoking room, which one entered through the library
behind the staircase. On the second floor there was the same general
arrangement: a square hall, and, opening from it, the guest chambers,
or, as Miss Broadwood termed them, the "cages."

When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return from their
various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding through the halls with
ice water, covered trays, and flowers, colliding with maids and valets
who carried shoes and other articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this
was done in response to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed
voices, so that there was very little confusion about it.

Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven pillars; there
could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for talent, the sanatorium of
the arts, so long projected, was an accomplished fact. Her ambition
had long ago outgrown the dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue;
besides, she had bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were
against her. Her project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing
out for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain of
the _rarae aves_--"the best"--could not be lured so far away from the
seaport, so she declared herself for the historic Hudson and knew no
retreat. The establishing of a New York office had at length overthrown
Arthur's last valid objection to quitting the lake country for three
months of the year; and Arthur could be wearied into anything, as those
who knew him knew.

Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was a temple to the
gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had
swallowed experiences that would have unmanned one of less torrential
enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. But, of late years, her determination
had told; she saw less and less of those mysterious persons with
mysterious obstacles in their path and mysterious grievances against the
world, who had once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue.