Mr. Rawn's long and shiny car was waiting for him when he stepped with stately dignity down the broad stair of the National Union Club. His chauffeur once more touched his hat, as he saw the hat of Mr. Rawn, so much taller and shinier than his own. Threading its path through the crowded traffic of the side streets, the car presently turned up the long northbound artery of the great western city. Surrounded by a large and somewhat vulgar throng of similarly large and shiny cars, it floated on, steadily, almost silently, until most of the noises and the odors of the city were left behind; until at last the blue of the great lake showed upon the right hand through ranks of thin and straggling trees, supported by a thin and sandy soil. Now appeared long rows of mansions, fronting on the lake, their amusingly narrow and inadequate grounds backing out upon the dusty roadway with its continual traffic of long, shiny and ofttimes vulgar cars. Miles of cars carried hundreds of men to miles of mansions. In less than an hour, from town to home, John Rawn also pulled up at the entrance to his home. Speed limits are not for such as Mr. Rawn. This residence, yet another of these pretentious mansions, top-heavy on its inadequate delimitations, and done by one of the most ingenious architects to be found for money, was as new, as hideous, as barbarous as any that could be found in all that long assemblage of varied proofs of architectural aberrations. It was as new as Mr. Rawn himself. The brick walks were hardly yet firmly settled, the shrubs were not yet sure of root, the crocus rows in the borders still showed gaps. Large trees, transplanted bodily, still were sick at heart in their new surroundings. The gravel under the new _porte cochêre_ still was red and unweathered. As to the house itself, it combined Japanese, Colonial and Elizabethan architecture in nice modern proportions, the architect having been resolved to earn his fee. Many who passed that way turned and pointed approving thumbs at the residence of Mr. John Rawn, president of the International Power Company, a new man who had come in out of the West, and who evidently was possessed of wealth and taste. II