Miss Benton parried courteously, a little at a loss to fathom this bland
friendliness, and presently the widening space cut off their talk. As
the boat drew offshore, she saw two women in white come down toward the
float, meet Abbey, and turn back. And a little farther out through an
opening in the woods, she saw a white and green bungalow, low and
rambling, wide-verandahed, set on a hillock three hundred yards back
from shore. There was an encircling area of smooth lawn, a place
restfully inviting.

Watching that, seeing a figure or two moving about, she was smitten with
a recurrence of that poignant loneliness which had assailed her fitfully
in the last four days. And while the _Chickamin_ was still plowing the
inshore waters on an even keel, she walked the guard rail alongside and
joined her brother in the pilot house.

"Isn't that a pretty place back there in the woods?" she remarked.

"Abbey's summer camp; spells money to me, that's all," Charlie
grumbled. "It's a toy for their women,--up-to-date cottage, gardeners,
tennis courts, afternoon tea on the lawn for the guests, and all that.
But the Abbey-Monohan bunch has the money to do what they want to do.
They've made it in timber, as I expect to make mine. You didn't
particularly want to stay over and get acquainted, did you?"

"I? Of course not," she responded.

"Personally, I don't want to mix into their social game," Charlie
drawled. "Or at least, I don't propose to make any tentative advances.
The women put on lots of side, they say. If they want to hunt us up and