that august day , the thunderheads began to pile up shortly after noon , but nobody who worked on the grounds of the two handsome antebellum homes which faced each other across the rolling expanse of green lawn and manicured flowerbeds believed that the thunderheads were telling the truth-not the groundsmen astride their lawnboys , not the woman who was in charge of computer subsections a-e ( as well as the computer-room coffee-maker ) , who took one of the horses and cantered it lovingly along the well-kept bridle paths during her lunch hour , certainly not cap , who ate a hero sandwich in his air-conditioned office and went right on working on next year 's budget , oblivious of the heat and humidity outside .