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Welcome to Mauritius. I am from American Express. Both Marlow Lewis and the Comtesse de Speville arranged that I should meet you at the same time as I meet up with my tourists. You are to travel with us in the mini-bus. Did you have a pleasant flight?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Looking at the girl, who was wearing white slacks and a black and white shirt, Jade wondered why she felt let down. After all, this was only what she had expected. Her face remained neutral, however, while her eyes slid past the girl from American Express, searching for the dark stranger with the strange sea-green eyes. A black Mauritian was taking care of her luggage now and there was nothing for it but to follow the girl in the white slacks. She took a calming breath. Well, that was that... unless, of course, she met him again, through Nicole de Speville. The realisation that she might caused her heart to miss a beat.

They went out into the sun and the wind which was very strong and which had, no doubt, been responsible for a ‘rough’ landing, as the man had referred to it.

The flight had, in fact, been better than she had expected and she had even experienced a kind of peace, while flying, which was surprising, really ... a kind of freedom, an almost mystic relationship between the ocean far below, and space.

People milled about them. Small, dark-skinned girls pestered Jade to buy shells and necklaces and golden bananas.

‘I am Vivienne, ma-dom. Please buy.'

‘I am Domaingue, ma-dom. You buy from
me. Please!’

Apparently they were used to the young lady from American Express, as they did not worry her to buy.

‘I have none of your money right now,’ stammered Jade, becoming embarrassed and confused.

‘I take Australian money, ma-dom. No worry.’

'I’m very sorry, really. I have no money at the moment—only traveller’s cheques,’ answered Jade, eager to keep up with the girl from American Express.

‘But you came on Australian plane, ma-dom.
Please!'
The young voice was accusing.

Feeling mean, Jade pushed her way through the thick crowd of people.

At the mini-bus she watched her luggage being wheeled in her direction and, satisfied that it was on its way, she glanced around, excited. Even from this point, amidst the traffic and confusion which goes along with an airport, she could see the sugar cane for which the island was known and those mountains, which seemed to have been heaved into shape by gigantic volcanic eruptions many ages ago and which had, in fact, been created in this manner.

Next to Jade a handsome and tanned priest was waiting his turn to have his luggage stacked into the small bus.

‘Hello, Father. You remember me. I am Domaingue, Father. You always buy from me when you return to Mauritius,'

‘Not now,’ he told her. ‘I always buy from you when I go back from my holiday. You know that, Domaingue.’

‘But, Father...’

‘You’re a persistent small girl, Domaingue. I'll buy from you when I return home in two weeks’ time.’

Jade remained standing where she was, the wind having its way with her hair and her dusky-pink Italian cashmere suit which was just a shade darker than the oleander bushes forming a low hedge to one side of where the minibus was parked.

Here, on this island, she was sure was everything she was going to need to be luxuriously content ... golden sunshine, coral reefs—and where every look, every smile was like a melodious note, bringing about that symphony which could only be Mauritius and where France, Africa and India met in a tropical island paradise of creamy beaches, lush gorges and those dramatic mountain peaks.

When she turned she caught her breath when she saw her flight companion who was exchanging greetings with the girl from American Express, and when his eyes met hers, she was aware of a feeling of exhilaration. Coming towards her, he said, ‘When I turned round back there, you were gone. Where did you get to?’

‘The same place as you did,’ she replied lightly. ‘I was completely swallowed up.’

‘Well, now that I have found you again I will drive you to the Hotel Chalain. My car has been delivered to the airport and is waiting.’

‘But...’ she lifted her shoulders and laughed a little, ‘how do you know I’m going to the Hotel Chalain?’

‘Obviously you are going there, if you were about to board this mini-bus. Besides, that is where Nicole de Speville has her health clinic, no? Or are you going to her house, which is quite close to the hotel?’

‘I’m going to the hotel, but....’

‘No buts,' he told her. ‘I will arrange for your luggage to be taken to my car. I have already spoken to the young lady, as a matter of fact.’

‘You have?’ Jade widened her eyes. ‘Well!’ She tried to sound annoyed. He was, she was thinking, a man who was capable of sincerity and who would be tender and gentle, on the one hand—but tough and hard, on the other. Although she felt she could trust him, it was just that things were moving too fast for her. ‘I am expected to arrive on the mini bus,' she went on, and then noticed that the girl from American Express had disappeared into the building which they had just recently left. The Indian driver, who looked cool in a white safari suit, was supervising the luggage.

‘Allow me to remind you that I am a friend of Nicole de Speville,' he said, and put out a hand to stop Jade’s luggage from going into the vehicle.

‘And you think that makes everything all right?' Jade’s smile was mocking. ‘I don’t even know your name and I am, after all, in a strange country.'

'I was coming to that,’ he said easily. ‘My name is Laurent Sevigny.' She liked the cutting precision of his voice and the air of male authority about him. Her blue eyes flickered over him and she knew that he would be a man who would have an instinctive feeling for human weaknesses in other people.

After a moment, because she knew it was expected of her, she said, ‘I’m Jade Lawford.’

‘I see.’ He gave her a leisurely look. ‘Since the days of the velvet hatbox and the use of surnames, even here in Mauritius, I believe, are gone, I will begin by calling you Jade. And now ....’ There was confusion about her luggage. ‘Leave it here.’ He sounded frankly irritable. ‘Miss Lawford’s luggage is going in my car.’

For a moment Jade went on looking at him. wide-eyed and considering, and then lifting one slim shoulder she allowed him to steer her and the porter who had come to light in the direction of his car which had been left at the airport for him to collect on his arrival.

After their luggage was stacked into his car, Laurent Sevigny, who believed that the days of the velvet hatbox and the use of surnames were gone, nevertheless opened the door, in the good old-fashioned tradition, for her. As she slipped into the seat and drew her long, elegant legs in after her, she gave him a mocking glance, but her thoughts in this connection were obviously lost on him.

As he got in beside her she turned to look at him. 'And yet ...
Laurent
... you appear very much the velvet hatbox type.’ She laughed softly.

‘So?’ He inserted the key and then glanced up, and because she felt the urge to draw a sharp little breath at the exciting nearness of him, she bit her lip. ‘Why is that?’ His strange eyes held hers.

‘Well,’ she shrugged, ‘it’s a long time since a man last deemed it necessary to open a car door for me. That, I think, puts
you
in the velvet hatbox type category. You're also very clever.’ Opening her bag, she took out her sunglasses and then, behind their tinted lenses, felt less exposed to his scrutiny. She did not want him to see that she was excited by his strong dark looks and the magnetism of his sea-green eyes.

‘In what way?’ he asked, before starting the car.

‘You’ve succeeded in manoeuvring me into accepting a lift from a stranger in a strange country, and I’m not sure I like that.’

After a moment he said, ‘About your remark concerning the car door. I do not suffer bad manners gladly and for this reason I prefer to open doors—and to close them. It is as simple as that. That is, I think, a clumsy word, no?
Manoeuvre?
It means, if my memory serves me correctly, a deceptive movement ... a skilful planning, on my part. I have given you my credentials. I am a friend of Nicole de Speville. There is nothing deceptive about that.’ He started the car and reversed out of the parking lot and soon they were passing through a succession of settlements, which seemed to teem with life of all descriptions—dark-skinned people in colourful attire, goats, fowls, skinny dogs and even pigs and piglets. By a coincidence, the mini-bus followed. The Indian who was driving it was using his hooter constantly and it surprised Jade when Laurent Sevigny began to do the same thing, scattering people and animals to one side of the road. Suddenly she laughed, shaking her head in wonderment.

‘You make James Bond look tame,’ she commented.

Turning to look at her, he sounded puzzled when he queried, ‘James Bond?’

‘Yes—you know, Ian Fleming’s character. You must have seen the films, surely?’

‘Of course.’ She watched him lift one tanned hand from the wheel. ‘James Bond. Playing that character placed the star in question among the biggest money-earning stars in cinema history, I should imagine. Now, to what do you refer? My driving? Or the fact that I am in the company of a dazzlingly, beautifully thrown-together girl?’ He turned to look at her again and his eyes went over her briefly before he gave his attention to the road.

Overall was magnificent scenery. Canefields, islets and glittering water. Suddenly Jade caught her breath as the mini-bus overtook them and narrowly missed a head-on collision with a huge truck which had loomed up from apparently nowhere.

Covering her mouth with her fingers, she exclaimed, ’Whew!’

‘It's all a case of making decisions,’ he told her easily, as if nothing had happened. ‘Either I blow my horn or I run people down. Here in Mauritius it is expected of a driver to constantly sound it. In fact, a driver is despised, almost, if he does not perform this ritual on the road. If I had to slacken speed every time a person or an animal got in my way we would make little headway in Mauritius.’

‘I can see that,’ she admitted.

Pink hibiscus and scarlet poinsettia hedged the roads, clashing beautifully with the unique mountains, in the distance, which were mostly of dark lava rock, rising up in strange shapes.

‘You have an unusual name,' he said, his voice at his most formal.

‘Yes—don’t ask me why. It must have been because my parents met in Singapore. My mother was very romantic.' She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

‘When I say your name in my mind I visualise a white jade phoenix bird.' She liked the way he turned to look at her, those strange dark sea-green eyes on her lips before they went to the hollow in her throat.

‘Do I remind you of a phoenix bird?' she asked, laughing a little.

‘Yes. I own a white jade phoenix and it is extremely beautiful.’

‘I see.' She stopped laughing and bit her lip, then she said, ‘Do you know, jade also means a worn-out horse.' Embarrassed by his remark, she was trying not to show it. ‘I should have thought, however, that you would have owned a jade dodo. Isn't the largest sports club in Mauritius named after the famous and extinct dodo?’

‘You have been doing your homework on your new country, I see. That is good.’

‘Marlow wrote about it,’ she said, feeling that it was now time to introduce Marlow into the picture of things. ‘He’s a member.'

‘Marlow? He is the man you are going to marry?' They were crossing over a bridge where down below, on the banks of the river, women were at work, thumping the dirt from bright cotton clothing on the rocks. Laurent Sevigny's voice, she thought, had changed.

‘Marlow Lewis? Do you know him?' Her eyes left the women below on the rocks and went to the bracelet she was wearing and she began moving it round and round on her wrist. As yet, the finger on her left hand was ringless. Soon, however, there would be an engagement ring and a plain or engraved gold band. For some unknown reason a shudder passed over her.

‘Marlow Lewis is a hunter,’ his voice was curt now. ‘I know him slightly. We do not move in the same circles.’ He sounded rude now.

'He’s a sugar farmer,’ Jade said softly.

‘He is also a hunter.’

After a confused moment she said, ‘I didn't know that. In fact, I didn't know there were wild animals on this island.'

‘No? Well, the shooting season lasts three months. It is the winter sport of the island’s privileged set. It is known to the French-speaking community as
la chasse.
Three thousand head or so of game are shot down every year, to the great delight of the hunter. It was the Dutch who introduced deer from Java.'

‘I....’ Suddenly Jade felt sick. ‘I didn't know. Marlow didn’t mention this in his letters to me. Do you hunt?’ She turned to look at Laurent Sevigny, impatient for his reply.

‘Like the deer,’ he said, ‘this paradise is also my home. I am not a hunter.’

I see.' She let out a breath. ‘Where do you live—on the island?’

‘I own a house within easy distance of the hotel.’

'You,’ she fidgeted with her bracelet again, ‘must be married, in that case?’

Turning to look at her, he snapped. ‘Why? just because I happen to live in a house? But no, I am a confirmed bachelor.’ Suddenly he looked amused and his eyes mocked her.

Why did she feel so crazily happy? she asked herself. What difference did it make? She was here to marry Marlow Lewis. She supposed she loved Marlow. After all, corresponding for two years had drawn them very close.

To steady herself she said, ‘Tell me, what are all those pyramid-like things in the sugar fields? I can’t help noticing them. Mound after mound of them.’

‘They are piles of volcanic rock,’ he told her. ‘They have been dug up from the earth and piled up that way.’

‘And that sweet and heady scent?’ she asked.

‘It is the scent of the sugar-cane. As you have probably noticed by now, sugar cane grows everywhere in Mauritius, even right down to the sea and fringing the towns. We have just passed a mill, back there. The smell was heavy there.’