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“I do like,” he said casually and, after a pause, he went on to describe the trip through swamp which he had just made.

Charles was not the type to take things for granted; nor was he in any sense a fool. He was well aware that it would be a long, long time before Phil could respond even slightly to another man, and he was also sufficiently acquainted with her sensitiveness to realize that his very knowledge of and sympathy in her trouble constituted a barrier to easy intimacy. But Charles had never taken any step in a hurry.

For that week-end the club had arranged many festivities and tournaments. The events at sea were prevented by heavy storms that transformed the waves into tumbling mountains and hemmed in the coasters close to harbour, but the intervals were plenty long enough for squash and tennis matches, a swimming gala at the pool, and polo. Jan Bridges, the indefatigable expert in parties of all kinds, particularly the card-playing variety, organized bridge and whist drives.

Charles attended most of the revels. In the comparative cool of early evening he partnered Phil in the tennis doubles, and on Saturday he drove her out to the races. On Sunday, both were of the party which picnicked at a native village down the coast and bartered tins of sweet com and tablets of soap for metal pots and painted gourds.

He brought her home to Jan’s house in good time to bath and dress for the special dinner at the club.

“I’ll come for you at a quarter to eight,” he said. “Get in half an hour’s rest, if you can.”

She smiled and nodded. Charles was always insisting on the necessity for rest.

Jan who was expecting some people for cocktails, used the bath first. Before Phil wallowed in tepid foam she arranged trays of savouries and bottles and glasses, and then, Jan, sheathed in silver tissue, took over.

“Go ahead and titivate, child. You did say Charles was coming for you?”'

“At seven forty-five.”

“In that case you won’t mind if we clear off as soon as we’ve had drinks. I assured the club chef that I’d be on hand from seven-thirty.”

Phil had reached her bedroom clad in a bathrobe when Jan’s guests arrived. She heard them laughing and talking on the veranda in tones which anticipated hours of excitement. She herself felt no increase of temperature. Perhaps the club would be crammed, the dinner more appetizing than usual, the band augmented and livelier, but what else would distinguish this night from any other during the last six weeks? The same faces, the same feverish atmosphere.

Phil got into her dress, a new white one, low-cut and smooth over shoulders and hips. She tidied her hair, rubbed on a hint of rouge and lipstick, and stood back for a dispassionate view of her figure.

Charles was late, and she began hanging away the skirt she had worn earlier, and tucking soiled underwear into her linen-basket ready for the laundry boy. She came into the lounge and dropped her wrap on to a chair. The lamp was low, and the doors, wide to the night, admitted a myriad small sounds and the warm scent of luxuriant growth. She lit a cigarette and glanced at the clock. After eight. Maybe Charles had been called upon to doctor someone; his friends often preferred his advice to that of the practising medico.

Half-way through the cigarette his car drew up outside. Phil pressed the butt into an ashtray and swept up her wrap. He came up the path and leapt the steps. She was about to say: “Don’t apologize, Charles. I haven’t minded waiting.” Then the pulled comers of his mouth, the way his eyes rested briefly upon her and swiftly lowered, drove conventionalities from her thoughts.

“A tragedy somewhere?” she asked at once.

“No.” He stood before her. “It’s. . . . Phil, I’ve had a visitor.”

“What sort of a visitor?” But she knew already.

“Julian Caswell. You’ve got to see him, my dear.”

Her only sign of emotion was a catch in her breathing. “How did ... he come here?”

“Through your lawyer in Cape Town. You gave the Institute as your address and he went there first. Everyone was down here at the club, but Johannes told him where I live. He demands to see you, Phil.”

She moistened her lips. “He hasn’t the right to demand anything. Where is he now?”

“Still at my house, alone. At first he insisted on coming here with me, but I made him realize that it would be hardly fair to confront you without warning. I promised to take you back.”

The youth had gone out of her. She was an unflinching, bitter woman. “I never want to see him again. Drive me to the club, Charles, and then go home and send him away.”

He put out a hand as though to take one of hers, but she avoided it.

“I’d spare you this if I could, Phil, but there’s no way out for you. He hasn’t sailed all the way from Valeira through electric storms and battering seas to be put off by a few words from me. He’s here to see you and nothing will stand in his way. Hadn’t you better get it over?”

“All he wishes me to know can be said through an attorney. I won’t see him.” In sudden fear, she whispered, “Charles, you haven’t…"

“Of course not. That’s between you and him. I certainly think he ought to know, but only you can tell him.”

“I don’t want his pity. I don’t want anything from him.”

Charles paused. Caswell had come too soon. She had not had time to live down the tragedy.

“I’m on your side, Phil, but I can’t see how you’re going to evade meeting him. It’s bound to be painful, but you can make it final.”

Her head lifted. Her jaw went taut. “You mean well, Charles, but you haven’t the least idea what you’re suggesting. Nothing . . .
nothing
would induce me to go to your house tonight for an interview with Julian.”

A small noise at the doorway made both swing round.

“If that’s true,” said Julian quietly, “it’s as well that I decided to follow Dr. Metcalfe.”

SHE stood there, very straight and pale, her hands unconsciously clenched at her sides. He advanced into the room and stared down at her, his bearing so unchanged that her tension snapped and she twisted towards Charles,

“Please take me to the club.”

“You’re staying here with me,” said Julian, “unless you prefer that we use my taxi and go elsewhere. I must ask you to leave us, Dr. Metcalfe.”

“No, Charles.” Again she gathered her wrap. “I’ll go with you.”

Sternly Julian barred her way. “You’ve a lot to explain and quite a bit to listen to. None of what we have to say can possibly interest Dr. Metcalfe. Let him go.”

Charles said: “He’s right, Phil. I’ll come back later.” Curiously withdrawn, he went out.

Till the sound of his car had died neither spoke. Julian slipped his cigarette-case from his pocket but didn’t open it. He let it slide with a clatter to rest on the small table near his knee. Almost imperceptibly Phil had put the width of the room between them. She still held her green evening coat clasped tight against her waist, but she felt calmer now. She even allowed herself a glance at his tropical suit, a glance which sped up over his set brown face, and gave her a hard courage.

“Supposing you have the first word,” he said abruptly.

“I shouldn’t know what to do with it,” she returned.

“You could start with your reason for walking out on me.”

“I could—if you weren’t aware of it already.”

Half-savagely, he came back at her. “The quarrel that evening at the bay was too puerile to break up what had grown between us. It was filthy luck that I couldn’t come over, but I sent Matt. He gave me your message that you were happy and understood what was keeping me on the island.”

So Matt had played goblin. For the moment his purpose eluded Phil, but it was all in the past and hardly mattered.

“A director’s daughter, wasn’t it?” she asked coolly.

“Phil! Did he let you think that?” Julian covered a few paces and turned. His voice no longer rasped. “No, you wouldn’t have believed it. There was more to it than passing jealousy.”

“Maybe I didn’t trust you.”

“That’s a damnable thing to say after the way I neglected the plantation two days of every week to be with you. Circumstances kept us apart for three week-ends and on the fourth you vanished.” He had sat on the back of the divan, facing her, his head thrust forward. “This is my side of it: I was on the island with guests in the house. We had a burst of tolerably good weather and I couldn’t get rid of them. At last they arranged to go—on the evening of the day you left Goanda. At dawn next morning I made the trip, to find neat piles of things I’d given you and half a dozen words’ of scribble that made no sense. From Grenfell I learned that your first stop was Port Andrew, so I came right on.”

“Here ... to Port Andrew?”

“What else would I do? I’d never heard of Metcalfe or the Institute. I enquired at the shipping offices, ascertained that you’d landed and bought a ticket for Lagos, and then made the discovery that the up-coast boat had sailed, probably with you on board. By then my anger was gone; I just wanted to find you.”

She had moved to the other side of Jan’s piano and was examining a photograph. Resolutely, she ignored his final sentence. “So you travelled on to Lagos.”

“I did, and drew blank. I hadn’t any doubt that you were lying when you gave your destination as England. Cape Town was far more likely. I tried everything—shipping, the airport, railways. I sounded everyone I knew, and had to conclude that you’d booked out under an assumed name. There was nothing to do but cable your lawyer in Cape Town and return to Valeira.”

“That was nearly six months ago.”

“Six months of hell,” he said grimly. “You’ve plenty to answer for.”

The green coat was at her feet. She leaned against the wall, regarding him coldly. “You seem to have overlooked an important
aspect of our relationship. I was no less free than you were. A mistress isn’t bound in the same way as a wife.”

Dark blood rose under his tan. “From the second I saw you this evening I’ve been expecting that. You’ve hardened, convinced yourself I’m just a brute who took all he considered himself entitled to and tired of it.” He straightened and came round to the front of the divan, and she saw signs of strain in his gesture. “Can’t we sit down? Hurling pleasantries across a dozen feet of space won’t get us far.”

She sank into the nearest chair, a straight one with wooden arms upon which her fingers curled. Julian had the divan to himself.

“Have you ever wondered why I married you?” he asked.

“You’d tried every other means of banishing me from the island, and we agreed that as soon as my money came through I'd get out of your way.”

“Didn’t it strike you that I might instead have arranged a loan with your lawyer, without your knowledge, to cover the three years’ allowance till you came of age?”

“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “You were older, and in those days I was unsure of myself.”

Tight-mouthed, he added: “And you felt yourself falling in love with me. You may not have suspected it, but you were, just as I was falling in love with you. I’m not protesting that I married you for love. I didn’t—not consciously, anyway. My attitude was dog-in-the-mangerish: I hadn’t much room in my life for a wife, but the idea of your marrying someone else was disturbing. After we’d gone through the ceremony I found myself thinking too much about you. I had to remind myself constantly that you were simply a child being helped over a spot. That was why I never let you forget the terms of our bargain. I didn’t know I loved you till the night I came across you knocked out under the ruins of my house.”

Phil said: “It wasn’t love—only a climax of pity—and, well, gratitude. It smote you suddenly that to want to save your possessions I must have ... cared a great deal.”

“Put what construction on it you like, but it made me happy—and terribly afraid.” His voice went low and vibrant. “For God’s sake, Phil. Need I go on?”

She was clinging to the chair with all her nerves. “No,” she managed, “you needn’t.” She had to pause. “A few minutes ago you dismissed the row we had last time we met as of no consequence...

He was on his feet, bending over her, his familiar fragrance about her head. “I was a swine, attempting to pin down the best in two worlds. At Goanda you were as safe as anyone could be in the tropics, and I could keep on at the plantation. Can’t you see how I was placed?” She was suddenly blazing angry. With an exclamation she sprang upright and jerked away from the chair, and from Julian.

“I can see your selfishness, your deliberate obtuseness where my feelings were concerned! Your heart was in the plantation and I was an agreeable tonic to be taken at the week-ends. The fact that we’d been before a registrar placated your conscience, but you made sure that no one else heard about it.”

“For your sake more than mine. Why the devil d’you suppose I’m here tonight?”

“Your ego was flicked. Previously, you’ve terminated your own affairs, but this time the woman was inconsiderate enough to leave you high and dry.”

He gave a harsh little laugh. “You seem to have spent the last few months loathing me. Maybe I deserved it, once. Possibly, even when we were living together at Goanda, I had qualms as to whether it could last. I haven’t any now.” His hands shoved into his pockets. Crisply, he went on: “You’re going back with me to Valeira. We’ll start properly, as husband and wife, and give it every chance of succeeding. When my time is up I won’t renew. We’ll go to Kenya.”

She laughed, but not as he had done. Her hands pressed over her eyes and the sobbing laughter shook her body and came from her throat in tearing gasps.

He grasped her shoulders. “Phil, my sweet!”

But she wrenched away. “It’s funny . . . horribly funny . . . your saying that . . . now.” The ghastly smile streamed with tears. “It’s too late. I’ve been cured of loving you. I don’t want you, Julian. You can revert to being the plantation boss with no strings ... or you can marry the director’s daughter. I don’t want you!”

She fled from the lounge to her bedroom, snapped shut the door and snicked the catch. Presently, in the darkness, her shivering ceased. She hung her dress in the wardrobe, slipped into a wrap and lay down, dazed with weariness and an excess of emotion.