ad known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably
personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He
wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one
object for which he and Cord were co-operating--only Cord would never
believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists--they always thought
themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it
was that capitalists had gained this impression.

On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of
course the boy had overslept, or hadn't received his telegram--Ben
said this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably
asleep in a luxurious bed in the Cords's house irritated him.

His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open
hack, who volunteered to "take him up for fifty cents." It sounded
reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the
horses' hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the
alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o'clock in the morning,
Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at
a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the
Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes,
reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned
into Bellevue Avenue--past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue,
past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large,
silent houses and walled gardens.

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