"What a huge hotel—but it isn't open!" she said.
"It will be almost directly. We turn to the right down here."
Some large rats were playing on the uneven stones close to the river; from a little shed close by there came the dull puffing of an engine.
"Where on earth are we going, Nigel? This is only a donkey track."
"It's all right. Just wait a minute. There's the Dutchman's castle, and we are just beyond it. Am I walking too fast for you, Ruby?"
"No, no."
She hurried on. Her whole body was clamouring for warm water with a certain essence dissolved in it, for a change of stockings and shoes, for a tea-gown, for a sofa with a tea-table beside it, for a hundred and one things his manhood did not dream of.
"Here it is at last!" he said.
A tall and amiable-looking boy in a flowing gold-coloured robe suddenly appeared before them, holding open a wooden gate, through which they passed into a garden.
"Hulloh, Ibrahim!" cried Nigel.