He caused
the land about the plant to be laid out in sunken gardens
and baseball fields and tennis courts, so that one
approached this monster of commerce through enchanted
grounds, glowing with tulips and heady hyacinths in
spring, with roses in June, blazing with salvia and golden-
glow and asters in autumn. There was something apologetic
about these grounds.
This, then, was the environment that Fanny Brandeis had
chosen. On the face of things you would have said she had
chosen well. The inspiration of the roller skates had not
been merely a lucky flash. That idea had been part of the
consistent whole. Her mind was her mother's mind raised to
the nth power, and enhanced by the genius she was trying
to crush. Refusing to die, it found expression in a hundred
brilliant plans, of which the roller skate idea was only
one.
Fanny had reached Chicago on Sunday. She had entered the
city as a queen enters her domain, authoritatively, with no
fear upon her, no trepidation, no doubts. She had gone at
once to the Mendota Hotel, on Michigan Avenue, up-town, away
from the roar of the loop.
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