It was her way of letting Counsell know, without being disloyal to her father, that she did not share in her elder's delusions. The young man looked at her in a new way. It was the first inkling of her real nature that she had given him. Pen felt his look through and through her. Pendleton took advantage of the pause to secure the floor again, and held it for some time. But he had to eat too, and as soon as he stopped talking to chew, Counsell turned to Pen. "Isn't it rather lonely here?" "Mercy, no!" laughed Pen. "Far too much to do!" "I suppose there are lots of agreeable people in the neighborhood?" "Up the county, oh yes," said Pen. "And you have all sorts of jolly parties?" "They do," said Pen briefly. "Not you?" Pen explained. "The road from here up the Neck that connects us with the world has become impassable for motors, even if we had one. Even a buggy can scarcely get through now. By road it's twelve miles to the nearest white man's house. Excepting the squatters. Our only way of communication is by motor-boat with the Island. Our friends do not live on the Island. And we've no way of getting up the county." "Have you no white neighbors at all?" he asked aghast. "Old Mr. Weems Locket who keeps the lighthouse." "No white woman near?" Pen shrugged. "No special hardship in that. I like men just as well as women." "Nobody but the light-keeper?" "Oh yes, in bad weather the bug-eyes and the pungy-boats lie under our bank and the skippers come ashore to call on father and use the telephone." "In winter it must be hard." "Oh things are never really as bad as they seem to one who doesn't know them." Just the same his sympathetic voice drew something out of her. For the first time she gave him her eyes freely. Wonderful dark, glowing eyes that won something of him that he never got back again. Her laughing, somber glance said as plainly as if the words had been spoken: "The winter here is Hell!" His eyes laughed back in hers, surrendering, and for an instant they were one. This brief interchange was terribly sweet to Pen; so sweet that it scared her. For some time afterwards she was quite stiff with him, and his eyes reproached her. When they left the table and went out on the porch Counsell made a deliberate move to separate her from her prosy father. With all his politeness the young man had a resolute air. "I think this is simply the finest site for a house that I have ever seen," he said to Pen. "Let's walk out and look over the edge of the bank."