Whitaker bent forward, inquiring: "Where are we?"
"Almost there. Patience."
Whitaker sat back again, content to await enlightenment at the pleasure of his host. Really, he didn't much care where they were: the sense of isolation, strong upon his spirit, numbed all his curiosity.
He reckoned idly that they must have threaded a good two miles of woodland, when at length the car emerged upon a clearing and immediately turned aside to the open doorway of a miniature garage.
For the first time in five hours he was aware of the hush of Nature; the motor's song was ended for the night.
The clearing seemed no more than a fair two acres in extent; the forest hemmed it in on three sides; on the fourth lay water. Nor was it an unqualified clearing; a hundred yards distant the lighted windows of a one-story structure shone pleasantly through a scattering plantation of pine.
Linking arms the better to guide his guest, Ember drew him toward the lights.
"Bungalow," he explained, sententious, flourishing his free hand: "hermitage—retreat."
"Paradise," Whitaker summed up, in the same humour.
"Still-water swimming at the front door; surf bathing on the beach across the bay; sailing, if you care for it; fishing, if you don't care what you say; all sorts of civilized loafing and no society except our own."