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“Hello, Roger,” she called, as the gate swung back and he sprang up. “Why aren’t you growing cocoa this morning?”

“Don’t ever let our chief hear you call it cocoa. Till it’s brown powder in a tin it’s cacao. I’ve got some news for you, Phil. I’m going on short leave in Lagos.”

“You lucky dog. How soon?”

“Tomorrow. The
Amirez
sails at dawn for Libreville. I’ll get another freighter from there up the coast. He’s given me the job of recruiting more labour.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“About three weeks.”

“Stay to lunch and tell me about it.”

Roger looked at her quickly. Since Nigel’s death she hadn’t invited him in for a meal. “Lord, I wish I could, but he told me to go back to the sheds and supervise the last of the loading. I hopped across to tell you in case I mightn’t see you again before I leave. Phil”—his voice dropped a tone—“you wouldn’t change the invitation, would you . . . make it dinner tonight, or an hour together after dinner?” She hesitated, conscious of his flush and a tiny spurt of exhilaration in her own veins.

“I don’t see why not. Come early, about seven.”

He gave her a strangled little smile, gripped her fingers and dropped them, said, “I’ll be here!” and loped away down the path.

After lunch she rested on her bed with a book, but later, when Manoela had brought tea and the windows on the shaded side of the house admitted a grateful breath of cooler air, Phil let her thoughts dwell dispassionately
on
Roger Crawford.

He had told her a little about hit family: his father a bank clerk in a small industrial town and his sister married to a back-street bookseller. Roger, like most agreeable
young men, had a strong streak of sentimentality. He visualized the day when he would step ashore at Liverpool and hug his parents; the conventional wanderer’s return. When his time on Valeira was ended he was going into partnership with his brother-in-law; and Phil could imagine no drearier fate than to be planted amid the broad-vowelled middle-class in a grey north-country town with a husband she had married for convenience.

However, by the time Roger presented himself, his hair sleek, his white jacket and slacks crisp from the laundry boy, Phil had forgotten her dismal meditations, and was faintly thrilled at the prospect of entertaining a clean-cut young overseer to dinner. In his honour she wore a green linen frock which reached the bend of her knees and allowed a fraction more breathing space in the bodice than her other dresses.

They ate a pot roast and sweet potatoes mashed with butter and seasoning, and followed it up with a tinned compote of fruit and whipped tinned cream, and rye biscuits topped with soft cheese and served with tender green bamboo shoots. They took coffee on the veranda, which was a treat for Phil; it was a long time since she had smelt such a cool, night-scented breeze. The ceaseless roar of the sea was narcotic.

Roger broke into the calm, silence. “This morning I was tickled pink at the thought of a holiday from the island. Tonight I’m less sure. Will you miss me, Phil?”

She smiled. “I shall miss the tennis. Clin Dakers is the only other player and he’s gone off again today for a spell in the woods.”

“I don’t like Clin. I’m glad he’ll be away while I am.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s too smooth and cocksure. There’s something queer about a chap who consistently wins at poker. And I loathe the way he talks.”

“You mean what he talks about?”

He nodded. “If it isn’t the lions he’s killed in the Congo, it’s the women he’s floored.”

“With his looks and physique both might be true,” she reminded him. “Clin’s single-track, but so are the other men here. Mr. Drew is only alive to his work, Matt exists chiefly for that round tummy of his, and you are devoured by the wondrous vision of a bookshop in small-town Lancashire.”

“That isn’t true,” he protested. “I never think of home except when the mail comes in—and that’s not often. God knows, I try hard enough to keep my keel even. It’s not too easy, when you’re tied to the same four walls with a man like Drew. He can sit for hours doing nothing.”

“How frightful,” she said soberly. “I should throttle him.”

He laughed, but without pleasure, and let a full minute elapse before stating, “As soon as you’re eighteen, Phil, I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

Well, here it was. She had only to answer: “Don’t let’s wait till I’m eighteen, Roger. Let me go with you tomorrow to Lagos and we’ll come back man and wife.”

Instead, she looked out into the garden and said lightly, “Thanks for the warning,” and moved from the chair at his side to take her favourite perch on the veranda rail. “You look after the shipping of the cacao, don’t you, Roger?”

“It’s part of my work—yes.”

“What’s the name of the British vessel due in at the week-end?”

“The
Bassington
.”

“I believe it sails next Wednesday. Does it call at Lagos?”

“I think so—we’re sending cinchona to a druggist there. She’s a new boat.” He paused. “Why the sudden interest in shipping?”

She shrugged. “One has to take an interest in something.”

Roger was easily sidetracked. She led him to expand about his life in England and the impulse which had driven him to apply for the post on Valeira. Charmed by her sympathy and attention, he talked on and on, till Matt rollicked by in his dusty sedan and yelled an emphatic “Good night.”

“Matt’s right,” said Roger ruefully. “I’ve overstayed disgracefully.”

“I’ve enjoyed it,” she assured him as they walked the path. “Usually I bolt myself within doors at sundown, and I miss these lovely hours of coolness.”

He had halted and was gazing down at her. In the pale radiance of the stars she was slender and sweet and very feminine, and Roger felt a rush of need and tenderness that had to find outlet. He held her shoulders and kissed her mouth, became deliriously aware of her quickened breathing, and kissed her again, more thoroughly. Then he wrenched himself away, vanished through the gate and soon was again visible some way off, his white-clad figure racing back to his bungalow.

Pleasantly stirred, Phil went indoors and locked up. That night she slept as soundly as a child.

Next day Matt made his promised trip to the manager’s house on the plantation. He chose twelve-thirty as the most likely time to catch Julian at home, and grousingly wore a white shirt and tie, and a pair of neat brown shoes which cramped his feet. When he came back about two hours later the tie waved a red tongue from his trousers pocket, his shoe-laces dangled and the shirt displayed the customary expense of hairy chest.

He sprawled in Phil’s lounge, smoking one of the inevitable cheroots with annoying complacency.

“I had a genuine lunch,” he said, “and Caswell opened a bottle of the best. I thought he’d be snooty—give me ten minutes and show me the door. After all, I do take good pickings from his natives, and quite often the wholesalers send trash that the poor blighters pay well for.”

“You’re as necessary to his workers as he is,” she declared. “Do hurry up and explain what happened.”

“All in good time, lovey. There’s nothing exciting to report. You know, Phil, you handled him wrong. With his sort it doesn’t do to be defiant—it puts his back up and made him determined to have his way.”

“He hasn’t any
right
to interfere with me. Anyone with a Portuguese visa can live here.”

“True enough, but milk-and-water law doesn’t operate in these parts. The plantation manager holds the key position, and if he decides to deport a lone young woman no one will dispute it, least of all the English and Portuguese authorities.”

“He’s a tyrant!”

Matt grinned. “He called you names, too. A pig-headed young idiot, a blind little fool, a damned nuisance, and one or two others. He also said that you were intelligent beyond your years, and you needed teaching a lesson, but he’d rather your education were furthered elsewhere. A complete analysis, and all for nothing.”

“Did you sit back and let him say those things about me?”

“They slipped out during lunch. No vehemence—just statements of fact.” Matt shifted and blew ash from his shirt.

“How did you leave it?” she demanded exasperated. “On Sunday night the skipper of the
Bassington
will dine with Caswell. He’s asked me along, too.”

“Nice for you,” she said witheringly. “Three tough men over a guinea-pig. You can save argument by letting them know at the start that when I decide to leave the island I’ll book my own passage.”

“It’s no use getting hot,” Matt yawned. “We’ve still an ace up our cuffs. You can marry Crawford.”

“I can’t. I’m not ... I like him, but not enough.”

“Oh, I thought you two seemed pretty snug together last night.”

“We were saying goodbye. He’s gone on leave this morning.”

“The devil he has!” Matt raised his head, a sly smile on his heavy features. “Why not pretend to be engaged to him . . . just for Caswell’s benefit? You can call it off when Roger returns, if you want to.”

‘That would only postpone the problem. Besides, I couldn’t treat Roger so rottenly. You’ve no scruples, Matt.”

He grunted himself upright. “Well, maybe not. I must agree with Caswell that you’re a difficult wench. I’ve eaten too much. See you later.”

Vexedly, Phil watched him go. Though she had not admitted as much to Matt, she was becoming really frightened. Supposing Julian Caswell succeeded and she was shipped to England. What could she do in a country that she knew more from Roger’s descriptions than from her own memories? She was already acquainted with the coldness and unfriendliness of large cities. The island had meant home and security for so long; till she had definite ideas for the future where else could she live?

During the whole of that stifling afternoon Phil rejected one absurd plan after another. She saw herself aboard the
Bassington
and leaving it at Lagos; searching for Roger and seeking a judge’s permission to marry; their joint return to the island and Julian’s discomfiture. But she had a horrid feeling that Julian’s reaction would sink into unimportance when Roger came to share this house . . . and her privacy. No, that was no good, either.

THE
Bassington
docked just before sunset on Sunday evening. Phil viewed the arrival of the ship from the harbour end of the promontory. The boat out there gave her a trapped feeling. Somehow, since Matt had lunched with Julian she seemed to have lost his allegiance. He had agreed with Julian’s verdict, had even accepted an invitation to dine this evening with the captain of the
Bassington
. Presumably the three men would conclude arrangements for her transport. It rather looked as if Matt were a traitor.

Yet when he called in on his way to the store the following morning Matt gave her the usual friendly wink.

“Thought you’d be itching to hear the decision of the council of three,” he said.

She was, but she answered coolly: “Too bad if it doesn’t coincide with mine. Did you have fun?”

“Not what you’d call fun. I learned that the
Bassington
is equipped to carry eight passengers. She’s picking up six at Lagos, and you’ll be the seventh—if you go. Caswell reserved a cabin for you, and he’s coming here this afternoon to see you about it.”

“You told them what I said?”

“Yes, but they remained unimpressed. Don’t worry, Phil,” he said airily. “There’s time for a miracle between now and noon on Wednesday.”'

“Matt!” Her tone changed, became eager and hopeful. “Are you planning something?”

“Tut, tut,” he adjured her sternly. “Would I hobnob with Julian Caswell and double-cross him at the same time? Be a good girl, keep your smile handy and let him believe you’re giving in. And be sweet to the man when he shows up—it may pay dividends. So long.”

Julian drove up at about three-thirty, and entered her hall with the same faintly mocking smile as before. He dropped his helmet on to a stool and, without invitation, reached for a cigarette from the crystal box on the table and set a match to it. The spurt of flame in the dim room illumined a strong, pleasantly bony face.

Today he sat well down in a comer of the chesterfield, one bare knee over the other. His gaze flickered over her small pointed face and straight shoulders against the flowered linen back of her chair, and it moved downwards, to her long, slim legs and white sandals.

“One of these days,” he said conversationally, “you’ll be grateful to me. You’re far too pretty to waste your youth in the tropics.”

“No time is wasted if one is happy.”

“You haven’t yet learned what happiness is, my child. It hasn’t anything to do with keeping agreeable and occupied, or getting the better of a filthy climate. It depends more on people than on things and circumstances. This house is tastefully furnished and homely in atmosphere, but it could never take the place of the human relationships which are necessary to sane living.”

“You rather harp on sanity, don’t you?” she mentioned. “What do
you
use in the place of human relationships?”

He smiled. “I’ve had them and passed on. At my age one has ceased to expect happiness from the conventional sources. One no longer trusts them.”

“How hateful. I shall never become jaded like that. I want to be loved ... all my life.”

His mouth thinned. “Of course you do. It’s the chief symptom of adolescence. You won’t find anyone on the island whose conception of love coincides with yours. They have an uglier word for it.” He paused. “Did Bryson tell you your passage is fixed?”

Prickling from his contemptuous reference to her youth, she nodded.

“Then isn’t it time,” he asked, indicating the Chinese vase on a cabinet, “that this sort of thing was either disposed of to other residents here, or safely packed away for despatch? I’ll lend you a boy, if you need one.”