Some of them went so far as
to say that they didn't think it was a very good hotel.
Ransom, however, didn't much care whether it were good or not; he hadn't
come to Marmion for the love of the hotel. Now that he had got there,
however, he didn't know exactly what to do; his course seemed rather
less easy than it had done when, suddenly, the night before, tired, sick
of the city-air, and hungry for a holiday, he decided to take the next
morning's train to Boston, and there take another to the shores of
Buzzard's Bay. The hotel itself offered few resources; the inmates were
not numerous; they moved about a little outside, on the small piazza and
in the rough yard which interposed between the house and the road, and
then they dropped off into the unmitigated dusk. This element, touched
only in two or three places by a far-away dim glimmer, presented itself
to Ransom as his sole entertainment. Though it was pervaded by that
curious, pure, earthy smell which in New England, in summer, hangs in
the nocturnal air, Ransom bethought himself that the place might be a
little dull for persons who had not come to it, as he had, to take
possession of Verena Tarrant. The unfriendly inn, which suggested
dreadfully to Ransom (he despised the practice) an early bed-time,
seemed to have no relation to anything, not even to itself; but a
fellow-tenant of whom he made an inquiry told him the village was
sprinkled round. Basil presently walked along the road in search of it,
under the stars, smoking one of the good cigars which constituted his
only tribute to luxury.
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