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He brought her another cocktail and as he passed it to her he said, ‘Well, here’s happiness. Here’s to your Australian ... your other Australian.’ His eyes mocked her.

‘And here’s to your—er—lady-love, whoever she happens to be. I can never work that one out,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he shrugged carelessly, ‘you wouldn’t be interested.’ His voice sounded lazy and bored and slightly mocking. ‘As a matter of fact, I thrive on variety. You know,’ he looked down at his glass, ‘I have been thinking.’ He lifted his lashes and met her eyes.

‘What about?’ There was interest in her voice now.

‘I have been thinking that before you go back we should have a romance.’

After a moment she said, ‘Are you suggesting that I should—fall in love with you?’

'I was not suggesting that. However, it would certainly help the romance along. Many island romances go on here and then,’ he lifted a shoulder, ‘when they are over, that is that. She goes back to her life—he goes back to his. It is as simple as that.'

‘This is, in other words, thriving on variety?’ Her blue eyes were angry.

‘Yes.’

'And this is really what you wanted, before Marlow got back, isn’t it? You wanted an island romance, as you call it.’

‘For sure. The idea gave me great pleasure ... especially as you yourself appeared eager for it. Actually, you might welcome such a romance when things begin to wind up here for you.’

‘Yes, I might.’ The island, the coral reef and island cocktails were beginning to work on her and she felt suddenly reckless. ‘Yes, I might at that.’

‘It is on the cards that you will,’ he said.

‘All right.’ Her face was pale now. ‘When do we start, Mr Sevigny?
The
successful Mr Sevigny, that is.’

‘Tonight ... now, but I am warning you, you could be asking for trouble. If we embark upon this island romance I must prepare you for the fact that I will go out of my way to make a casual romance look like the real thing.’

After a moment she said, ‘Well, fine—and that must make you dizzy with success, mustn’t it?’

She watched him as he came towards her and then, taking her fingers in his own, he drew her up beside him. Then he took her glass from her and put it down on a nearby table. Don’t let me cry, she was thinking; don't let me cry .....

‘Are you afraid?’ he asked, before he took her into his arms.

‘No.’

‘I was serious,’ he told her. ‘I want to go as far with you as I can.’

'You could say I’ve just become a "good-time girl,” she said, in a hard little voice. ‘You show me the island, the Chinese cooking, the Creole and French cooking, market places and pink sunsets and then I’ll go back ... with my memories.
I'll
give you—variety, the kind you thrive on,’ she added with measured harshness.

He looked at her with an expression that unnerved her, then he kissed her and the kiss lasted a long time, then he released her suddenly so that she stumbled.

'Don’t feel guilty over Marlow Lewis. I don’t think you should even speculate about him. He himself is not absolutely gallant.’

Afterwards, Jade realised that she had hardly known what she was hearing. They walked back to the hotel, along the beach and with the blackness of the sea beyond. Laurent had kissed her with passion and she had responded with abandon, while one part of
her wept. At her door she said, 'I'm not going to invite you in.’ Tensely, she watched him. ‘I don’t want to—to— be rushed—you know?’

Suave and handsome, he said, ‘You are divided between indecision and the temptation to go on with this?’

‘I
have
decided. We said we’d start at the beginning, not at the end.’ She shivered, although the air was warm and scented and the corridor in which they were standing was open on one side to the sea breezes.

‘In that case—until tomorrow, and the next day— and the next. Goodnight, Jade.’

She had not yet begun to prepare for bed when there was a knock on her door and, believing it to be Laurent, she hesitated and then opened it. Marlow stood there.

‘I thought you’d gone home,’ she said. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I’ve just come from Nicole’s. May I come in? I have something to say to you.’

‘You mean about ....’ She had been about to say Laurent, but he interrupted.

‘I mean about myself and Nicole.’ His eyes went over her face. ‘You must have been filled in by now, surely?’

‘Filled in?’ Jade looked back at him stupidly, and then the reality hit her. Nicole de Speville and Marlow Lewis. Of course! She could see it all now. Nicole’s coldness, Laurent’s double-talk, Marcelle’s look of blank surprise.

Marlow remained standing, refusing to take one of the beautiful peacock cane chairs, but Jade sat on the side of her kingsize bed, for suddenly her legs were too weak to support her.

‘Look,’ Marlow was saying, ‘you’re a nice little kid, but that’s all there is to it. At first your letters saved me from going mad out here. Elisa was the only woman I ever loved, believe it or not. If she hadn't, been killed, along with Jeffrey, I’d still have been sheep farming in Australia—let's face it. I doubt it we would ever have married. We were both drifters, but we fitted. When I came here I had one affair after the other.’

‘Even after you wrote suggesting I come here to marry you?’ Her voice was strangled, even though relief was flooding her.

‘Even after that. And make no mistake, it will go on, of that I have no doubt. I'm just made that way. Anyway, Nicole and I had something going. She'd lost her husband. We satisfied one another's needs. She didn’t even mind when I told her about you, and then when a vacancy for a beautician fell vacant she agreed to you making application. But then I knew that, apart from the odd flutter on my part, I'd reached the stage when I wanted to let my hair down with a woman nearer my own age. I’m—er—putting my cards on the table, Jade, and I trust you’ll keep this under your hat, but Nicole has money. What
I
need right now to make a go of sugar farming is money. Tonight, Nicole insisted that I come back here and tell you that we want to get married.’

‘Does she know that money also comes into this?’ Jade asked, and her eyes showed the contempt she was now feeling for Marlow.

‘Come off it. In any case, I guess I’m in love with her. Money will help things along, that's all.’

Jade sat staring up at him. She had been going to tell him of her relief at his news, but in view of what he had just told her about his affairs on the island and possible future affairs and his concern with Nicole’s money, she kept this to herself.

‘It's a pity,’ she said, ‘that you hadn’t broken the news before I left Australia, isn’t it?’

‘What will you do?’ he asked. She watched him as he began to pace about the room. He looked rugged and strong with his almost auburn hair and beard. It was not difficult to imagine him having his way with women—and hunting down animals. At this moment she despised him.

‘I’ll stay on here for a while.’ She got up and went to stand in front of the big glass sliding doors to her balcony. Then she slid them wide open and the sea breezes drifted in and the curtains began to float upwards and her room felt suddenly clean again. ‘That’s the only stipulation I have to make. That I stay on here for three months. I should have enough money by then to get me back to either Australia or England.’

‘Perhaps Nicole will allow you to work on at the clinic,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘It’s funny,’ she gave him a level look, ‘but I always thought that Laurent Sevigny and Nicole were having an affair.’

Suddenly Marlow laughed shortly. ‘She’s years older than he is! ’

‘Age doesn’t seem to make much difference these days,’ she persisted, watching him.

‘No ... I can tell you, here and now, there’s nothing going on there and never has been. Nicole asked him to bring her to a couple of parties at my place, that’s all. She didn’t want to give rise to gossip so soon after her husband had died. A lot of people knew about us, but she tried to keep it quiet, naturally.'

‘What about Marcelle Fabre?’

‘I wouldn’t touch her with a seven-foot pole,’ he snapped.

‘I wasn’t referring to you—I mean Laurent Sevigny.' Her eyes never left his face.

‘Oh,
him.
No doubt he's got something going with her.’ Marlow spoke with a brutal indifference. ‘I don’t give a damn, one way or the other.’

After Marlow had gone Jade went to sit outside on the balcony. The filaos sighed and the palm fronds rattled against a background noise of the surf on the reef. Lights from the hotel made glittering patterns on the black water of the pool.

In
the morning she went back to a world of shadowed hibiscus-pink, apricot and gold silk and cotton curtains, honey-gold tiled floors and arches everywhere. Louvred doors swung open and shut, rustling the exotic leaves of the plants which grew in huge honey-gold urns. The health clinic was filled with subterranean sounds and slapping noises. On the other hand, Jade’s salon was a rose-tinted, mirrored sanctuary, where the reception area was decorated with ancient Chinese, Japanese and Indian furniture and carved temple good-luck chairs, adorned with hibiscus-red Persian silk cushions and which Nicole had purchased from Laurent Sevigny. The chairs bore the carvings of the ancient Chinese designs on them—lotus, temple dragon and phoenix. What was it they said about the phoenix? The only bird of its kind, which after living for centuries in Arabian desert, burnt itself on a funeral pile—to rise again from the ashes to live through another cycle.

Well, thought Jade, like the phoenix she was about to burn herself. But would she arise with renewed youth? She very much doubted it. She would take back to Australia, or England, her memories and her broken heart.

While she dreaded coming face to face with Nicole she felt a wave of relief, nevertheless, when Nicole rang through for her. ‘I’d like to see you in my office, please.’ Nicole was surrounded by files and brochures and people kept knocking and, in turn, were dealt with or merely waved away.

‘Please,’ she said to Jade, ‘sit down. I will get straight to the point, I think.’

Determined to keep her feelings to herself, Jade said, ‘Please do.’

‘By now,’ Nicole went on, staring down at her desk, 'you will be acquainted with the fact that the man you have come here to marry has let you down. No?’ She glanced up and the false eyelashes she always wore made her eyes appear very big. ‘For that is what it amounts to.’

‘Yes,’ Jade replied, ‘that’s what it amounts to.’

‘And,’ Nicole went on, ‘what is more,
I
am that “other woman”. I have been most unhappy. I wanted for Marlow to write and tell you this, but he could not bring himself to do it. I had thought of writing to you myself, but ...’ she broke off and shrugged, ‘I—I couldn’t. I am sorry.’

‘I sensed something, of course,’ Jade replied.

‘You did?’ Nicole’s eyes widened. ‘About us?’

‘I sensed
something
, Nicole. Let’s just leave it at that.’

‘I see. I’ll be honest with you, Jade. When I saw that you appeared interested in Laurent Sevigny I kept on hoping that you would discover for yourself that Marlow is too old for you,’

'Making a comparison didn’t enter my mind,' Jade decided to keep up the tournament.

'Of course.' Nicole's voice was stiff now. ‘Marlow tells me that you wish to stay on here for three months before you go back to Australia. That is right, no?'

‘Yes. It’s a stipulation I’ve made. I wish to remain on the island for three months—for reasons of my own. It will be a kind of working holiday. If I don't work here, it will be somewhere else.’

‘No, no. You will work here, of course.' There was relief in Nicole's voice, but not much joy. ‘That I owe you, at least.'

‘You owe me nothing, Nicole.'

'
I
feel I do and, for this reason, I wish for you to take the three weeks’ vacation which would have been due to you had you married Marlow and kept on working for me. No, no, no ....' Nicole lifted a hand. ‘I insist, absolutely. This with my blessing.
Please.
Then when matters have died down a little you will come back— until you are ready to leave. You have made a stipulation. Allow me to make mine. Beginning from tomorrow.'

Jade heard her own small, unsettled intake of breath. All right. If that’s what you want, Nicole.’

The funeral pile will be high, she was thinking, as I burn myself. Every day for three weeks ... with Laurent. Every night ....

'I wish you well,' Nicole was saving. ‘You will get over this, believe me. Marlow is much too old for you, my dear.'

And for you
. Jade felt like saying. He's much too old for you too, Nicole de Speville. Marlow is old and jaded, so far as women are concerned. Although you’re his age you’re obviously comparatively untouched by men—and their ways. You go to your funeral pile, Nicole, I’ll go to mine ....

'You look so strange,’ Nicole said. 'Are you feeling all right?’

'Yes. Yes, of course. I wish
you
well, Nicole. I really do.’

Laurent phoned soon after Jade got back to the salon. 'I want you to lunch with me,’ he said.

'I can’t see you today,’ she told him. 'Nicole has insisted that I go on three weeks’ leave, from tomorrow. I have things to do today.’

'This evening, in that case. I will take you to a Chinese restaurant in Port Louis, for Port Louis you have not yet seen. At night it is shrouded in mystery.’

‘All right,’ she said softly, and took her first plunge beneath the high cold breaker which was going to wash her up on the shore where the funeral pile was already waiting. 'By the way, I know everything. The lovers have confessed.’

'That is to the good,’ he said, ‘but don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know any more. I feel I know it all. Until this evening, then.’