XX
TEMPERAMENTAL
Seldom, perhaps, has an habitation been so unceremoniously vacated as was the solitary farm-house on that isolated island. Whitaker delayed only long enough to place a bill, borrowed from Ember, on the kitchen table, in payment for what provisions they had consumed, and to extinguish the lamps and shut the door.
Ten minutes later he occupied a chair beneath an awning on the after deck of the yacht, and, with an empty glass waiting to be refilled between his fingers and a blessed cigar fuming in the grip of his teeth, stared back to where their rock of refuge rested, brooding over its desolation, losing bulk and conformation and swiftly blending into a small dark blur upon the face of the waters.
"Ember," he demanded querulously, "what the devil is that place?"
"You didn't know?" Ember asked, amused.
"Not the smell of a suspicion. This is the first pleasure, in a manner of speaking, cruise I've taken up along this coast. I'm a bit weak on its hydrography."
"Well, if that's the case, I don't mind admitting that it is No Man's Land."
"I'm strong for its sponsors in baptism. They were equipped with a strong sense of the everlasting fitness of things. And the other—?"