"No women?"
"Not a petticoat."
"No neighbours?"
"Oh"—Ember motioned to his left as they faced the water—"there's a married establishment over there somewhere, but we don't bother one another. Fellow by the name of Fiske. I understand the place is shut up—Fiske not coming down this year."
"So much the better. I've been wanting just this all summer, without realizing it."
"Welcome, then, to Half-a-loaf Lodge!"
Skirting the edges of the plantation, they had come round to the front of the house. An open door, warm with light, welcomed them. They entered a long and deep living-room with walls of peeled logs and, at one end, a stone fireplace wherein a wood fire blazed heartily. Two score candles in sconces furnished an illumination mellow and benign. At a comfortable distance from the hearth stood a table bright with linen, silver and crystal—covers for two. The rear wall was broken by three doors, in one of which a rotund Chinaman beamed oleaginously. Ember hailed him by the title of Sum Fat, explaining that it wasn't his name, but claiming for it the virtue of exquisite felicity.
"My servant in town, here man-of-all-work; I've had him for years; faithful and indispensable...."
Toward the end of an excellent dinner, Whitaker caught himself nodding and blinking with drowsiness. The fatigue of their long ride, added to the nervous strain and excitement of the previous night, was proving more than he had strength to struggle against. Ember took laughing compassion upon him and led him forthwith to a bedroom furnished with the rigid simplicity of a summer camp. Once abed he lay awake only long enough to recognize, in the pulsating quiet, the restless thunder of surf on the beach across the bay. Then he slept round the clock.
He recovered consciousness to lie luxuriating in the sensation of delicious and complete repose, and to listen lazily to the drum of raindrops on the low roof—too lazy, indeed, to turn his head and consult his watch. Yet he knew it must be late in the morning, for the light was broad, if gray.