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"Oh, Charles!" she whispered into the darkness of the garden, "what have you done, making me love you when there's something in your eyes which tells me that love means nothing to you?"

WITH two days of bargaining ahead of him, Charles left for San Francisco the following morning.

"I'm on a tight schedule now," he told Elizabeth as they stood in the foyer of the hotel waiting for the taxi he had ordered. "I must be in New York by the weekend, so I can't afford to be held up in 'Frisco. See that my grandmother gets to the airport in time and doesn't go off on a tangent for a reason best known to herself. I'm relying on you," he added firmly.

Adele came rushing up to wish him
bon voyage
in a breathless manner which suggested that she must have been hurrying.

"We'll see you in 'Frisco, Charles," she assured him. "I'm quite looking forward to a short stay at the Drake. It's many years since I've been there, as you know."

"It hasn't changed much," he assured her with a smile.
"Au revoir,
Grand'mere!" He stopped to kiss her on the cheek. "Take care of yourself."

He held Elizabeth's hand for a brief moment at parting, and foolishly she wanted to cling on to it, to keep him beside her for ever.

When he had gone she took Adele by the arm.

"You must have letters to write," she suggested. "Shall we work this morning? I don't seem to be earning my salary as a secretary."

"You're doing very well as my companion," Adele told her, "but there is some correspondence to attend to. Perhaps we ought to work while it's cool and go for a drive later. Or we might have a small shopping spree!" She searched in her white patent shoulder-bag. "I must change some money into American dollars, and then we won't have to waste time doing it in 'Frisco, where the shops are really grand."

Smiling at her enthusiasm, Elizabeth went with her to change her Australian currency into American.

"I don't know about New York," Adele said. "I don't think we'll be there very long, and the Fifth Avenue shops are away beyond my means. New York isn't what it was," she decided firmly. "I used to walk in the Park without the slightest hesitation, for hours at a time, and now they tell me one daren't go there alone, even in broad daylight."

"There's no need for you to go alone." Said without thinking, but at the back of her mind Elizabeth had the uncomfortable feeling that she might never see Fifth Avenue or Central Park. If anything went wrong before they reached San Francisco Charles would be justified in sacking her on the spot.

The thought chilled her, making her keep a weather eye open for each movement her employer made in case Mrs. Abercrombie might decide on some scheme of her own which would be put into practice immediately.

They wrote letters all morning, chiefly to friends of Henri Duroc, acquainting them of his death on Maui and Adele's sadness at his passing. In one letter to a mutual friend in Paris she wrote that 'Henri was part of my youth, my childhood companion, and so a small part of me has gone with him'.

"We must not dwell on it too much," she told Elizabeth when the letters were finished. "Henri had a full and successful life and he lived to a ripe old age with no serious illness to endure. This is what we must be thankful for every day of our lives. Now," she added briskly, the subject finally closed, "we will have a very light lunch and drive into Honolulu afterwards to shop. I have several gifts to buy to take back to Glen Dearg to my little 'family'. Jenny, for example, would never forgive me if I didn't bring her some trinket from Hawaii." She hesitated. "Jenny and her sister live near Kilchoan," she explained. "Natalie runs a riding school, but Jenny still suffers from the result of an accident." A look of pain crossed her face as she remembered the past. "It happened three years ago. We were all very much involved. Jenny is a dear creature," she added with a smile, "but Natalie distresses me. She's far too introspective to be really likeable. I've tried and failed with her so many times."

Another 'lame duck', Elizabeth thought, remembering Charles's remark about his grandmother's
protégées.

"It worries me considerably," Adele went on. "I don't want
to
see Charles's chances of ultimate happiness clouded by an old memory." She sighed deeply. "It's rather a sad story, Elizabeth, but I won't burden you with the details now."

Anything which concerned Charles was of interest to Elizabeth, but she could not say so. She had to store every reference to him in her heart without asking too many questions.

They ate their lunch at a table in the garden overlooking the ocean, a light, refreshing meal of sea-food and a wonderful concoction of pineapple which Mrs. Abercrombie insisted that Elizabeth should sample.

"Are you going to lie down for an hour?" Elizabeth asked, remembering the rigours of the previous day and her employer's advancing years.

"Indeed not! I never do," Adele declared. "It is a waste of time to sleep during the day when there is so much that has to be done." She patted Elizabeth's arm. "Run up and bring me a light wrap. I always wear something over my shoulders when the sun is strong."

"You'll stay where you are till I get back?"

"Of course,
ma chere
! I may even put my feet up, just to please you," Adele smiled, suiting the action to the word by stretching out on the lounger where they had relaxed with their coffee.

Elizabeth went swiftly up to their rooms to collect a chiffon scarf and her own wide-brimmed hat which she had brought on the trip to Pineapple Valley.

How far away that seemed, she thought, going back down in the lift, years and years ago if she measured it by experience.

When she reached the garden her employer was sitting up on the lounger talking to a stranger. He was a tall man, obviously American, with a serious expression and a bulging briefcase under one arm. They were deep in conversation and Mrs. Abercrombie looked disturbed.

"Mr. Ballour has stopped off here on his way to Maui," she explained as Elizabeth joined them. "He is Henri's lawyer."

The tall man shook Elizabeth by the hand.

"Glad to know you," he said automatically. "We won't keep you waiting very long." He glanced towards the adjacent table. "I have a few business items to discuss with Mrs. Abercrombie. Can I get you something to drink?"

"We have just finished lunch," Elizabeth told him, withdrawing to the convenient empty table to busy herself with the money she had changed that morning.

She now had fifty American dollars to spend while she remained in the United States and she decided that would be sufficient to tide her over any small emergency. If she was to be dismissed in San Francisco she would be flying from there direct to England, with only a brief transit stop in New York.

Her eyes clouded with a vague disappointment, although she tried to remind herself that it had been a possibility right from the start No one had promised her a lifetime of service to Mrs. Abercrombie, this amazing old lady with whom she had fallen in love.

She lay in the sun, wondering if any stranger experience could have befallen her. Here she was on a Hawaiian island, living for a brief interlude a life she could hardly have imagined because an old lady had decided that she needed her companionship. She knew quite well that she would never have been employed by the Abercrombies but for the firm decision of Adele in the Rose Bay flat when Charles had objected to her so strongly because of her youthful inexperience.

Nothing had changed, she supposed. The dinner in the Tapa Room and a romantic cruise in a catamaran by moonlight were far behind them now, events in the past which he would never think about again. And that kiss? It had been an impulse of the night, a gesture to romance which any man might have made in the circumstances.

Shaken by the thought, she turned to find the lawyer taking his leave of Adele. He had deposited some of the papers from his briefcase in her lap and he shook her hand firmly as they said goodbye.

"You can leave everything to me," he assured her. "There's absolutely no need for you to make the journey back to Maui at the present time."

"Everything is in Mr. Kapala's hands," Adele told him. "Since he is to continue as manager I have nothing to worry about. One -day I shall return, Mr. Ballour. I feel it in my bones."

"I will be happy to meet with you," the lawyer told her. "Good day, Mrs. Abercrombie. Goodbye, Miss Drummond," he added, turning towards Elizabeth.

Adele Abercrombie sat very still after he had gone.

"Elizabeth," she said, at last, "I'm sorry. It looks as if our shopping spree is going to be curtailed."

"What has happened?" Elizabeth asked, sitting down beside her. "Is something wrong?"

Adele's eyes were moist with tears as she turned towards her.

"I have some—business to attend to," she said quietly. "Some documents to sign which Mr. Ballour would like to have before we leave tomorrow. Will you bring a pen and writing-paper, please? Henri has left the Maui plantation to me for my lifetime. After that it will go to John Kapala, who will manage it in the meantime."

She had been utterly surprised and greatly affected by her old friend's generosity, and there was no doubt that she loved Maui almost as much as she loved Glen Dearg.

"How kind of him," said Elizabeth. "But you knew him for a very long time."

"All my life." Adele looked down at the documents in her hand. "It was a true friendship. I believe I would have married Henri if Douglas Abercrombie hadn't come along to sweep me off my feet in Paris and make me the happiest woman in Scotland for the rest of our time together. Our marriage was a partnership in every sense of the word. We even thought alike. Ah, there were arguments—
cela va sans dire—-but
we were always adult enough to iron them out in a satisfactory way. Douglas founded Abercrombie's, you know, and I have worked hard to preserve the ideal he had when he first began. Our employees are our shareholders and they do very well if the firm does well. Most of them appreciate the fact, I think."

"What will you do about Maui?" Elizabeth asked. "About the plantation?"

"Leave it very much as it is. It will be a sort of memorial to Henri. Of course, it must pay its way," said the practical Adele, "but John Kapala will see to that. Nothing will change, as far as he is concerned, until I die, and then the estate which he has worked to preserve will be his. He has a charming Fijian wife and five children, so he deserves to have a stake in the island for the future."

"It sounds like another partnership," Elizabeth smiled as she went to find the writing material.

They disposed of the documents for the lawyer plus several business letters by three o'clock.

"We'll take a taxi into the city and drop these at Mr. Balfour's office," Adele suggested. "Then we may be able to do some of our shopping, after all."

The smiling Polynesian boy who drove the taxi dropped them at the Civic Centre, waiting hopefully for further business.

"I take you to see Manoa Valley?" he offered. "Many beautiful homes there and beautiful flowers. You like orchids and anthuriums, maybe? You like to buy some? You have tea in Tea Room and see Robert Louis Stevenson's grass shack? Very proper place where he lived once. You go to National Memorial Cemetery at Punchbowl? Big view of city there!" He smiled engagingly.

"Please don't let us go too far," Elizabeth begged as her employer gave the suggestions her earnest consideration.

"You see only Throne Room in United States at Iolani Palace?" the exuberant driver rushed on. "Very beautiful; very old."

"We'll settle for Robert Louis Stevenson and a cup of tea," Adele decided, propelling a half-reluctant Elizabeth back into the taxi. "
Allons!
We can't possibly get lost," she added. "You do worry a lot about what Charles might think, don't you?"

"I made him a promise before he left."

"And what did you promise?" Adele's eyes were alight with interest.

"Not to keep him waiting, not to hold him up in San Francisco when he ought to be in New York."

"Why should we do that? Everything runs quite smoothly on a Qantas flight, I can assure you. They think of everything," Adele declared. "No, you needn't worry about getting to San Francisco on time—or New York either," she added thoughtfully.

Perhaps she
was
over-anxious, Elizabeth acknowledged, allowing herself to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

At the Waioli Tea Room they sat in the shade for half an hour before going on to visit the historical grass shack where Stevenson had written his books.

"How different it must have looked in those days," Adele murmured. "Yet it isn't really so long ago, is it? The city has swallowed everything up in a very short time, as cities invariably do."

They took the waiting taxi back to the Centre, where Adele did a little shopping and finally decided that it was time to return to the hotel.

"We'll have a meal in the restaurant and then we can walk by the sea," she suggested. "I'd like to do that on my last evening at Waikiki."

They walked to the yacht basin and back, along the same path which Elizabeth had taken with Charles, and every step was a memory. Somehow, she wished that they had chosen some other way because Diamond Head and the bright stars over it were too poignant a reminder of that other walk within sight and sound of the ocean when Charles had been by her side.

Remembering her final promise to him, she paused when they came level with the hotel.

"As you wish!" Adele smiled. "We will go to bed just in case we oversleep in the morning and miss the plane!"

They had an early call the following morning and sat over a leisurely breakfast till their taxi was announced.

"Charles attended to the bill before he left," Adele announced, "so we have nothing to settle up. There's only one letter to John Kapala which I want him to have as soon as possible, but I can post it at the airport. It will go direct from there."