The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering
bush trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the
whole avenue was full of little red lights, like the garden in "Faust"
when Mephistopheles performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge
headlights of a car shone on the roadway, magnifying every rut in the
asphalt, and bringing out strange, vivid shades in the grass and the
hydrangea bushes. They were passing a frowning palace set on a piece
of velvet turf as small as a pocket handkerchief--so small that the
lighted windows were plainly visible from the road.
"Stop," said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it
must be before he could rouse the Cord household.
He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway
toward the house. Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their
cars--vigorous, smartly dressed men, young for the most part. Ben
wondered if it were possible that they were content with the present
arrangement, and whether their wives and children were not stifling in
the city at that very moment. He caught a sentence here and there as
he passed. "And, believe me," one was saying, "as soon as he got into
the box he did not do a thing to that fellar from Tiverton--" Ben's
footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He almost forgave
the chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human beings,
after all.
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