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"I bet she could, when she was younger," Elizabeth whispered back.

"What's the matter, honey?" The wicked black eyes were glinting straight down at Elizabeth. "Is he trying to lead you astray?"

There was general laughter, which confused Elizabeth until Charles put his arm lightly about her shoulders.

"It's all in the act," he declared. "A good opening gambit."

The large woman was a polished artist.

"Once, a long time ago," Charles said, "I saw Hilo Hattie doing her act in Hawaii, It was like this one. She was a wonderful performer, and although she must have been twelve stone or more she ended up dancing the hula as skilfully as any of the chorus girls."

"I'll be disappointed if I don't see the hula," Elizabeth confessed.

"You will." His arm slid away from the back of her chair, the kindly gesture of protection apparently forgotten. "It's a feature of all cabaret out here. People expect it and the management obliges. It will probably be kept for the final act."

When the drums began to beat out the rhythm of the hula and the dancers filed back in grass skirts and three-layered leis with coronets of flowers in their hair Elizabeth sat forward in her seat, her lips parted a little, her cheeks gently flushed. It was a wonderful experience, the rhythm mounting to a crescendo as the dance finished and the smiling dancers moved to the front of the stage.

Under cover of the thunderous applause Charles leaned towards her.

"Had enough?" he asked.

Her eyes were full of regret as she looked at him.

"Is it all over?" she asked, faintly disappointed.

"I'm afraid so, unless you can go on eating for another three hours till the second show comes on at midnight."

She rose reluctantly as he signed to the waiter to bring the silk shawl she had worn over her sleeveless dress. It was nine o'clock, early by Hawaiian standards, but her wonderful evening had come to an end. Silently she walked' from the restaurant by Charles's side.

"Is there anything else you would like to do?"

The question was so unexpected that Elizabeth could only answer it truthfully.

"I'd like to walk by the sea," she said. "But you would hate that, wouldn't you," she added quickly. "You would think it foolishly romantic."

He took her by the arm.

"Since you can't walk around the beach on your own, there isn't an answer to that," he said. "What sort of shoes are you wearing?"

"Inadequate ones, with fairly high heels, but I can take them off and walk in my bare feet," Elizabeth offered.

"Like a little girl."

The comparison struck a chill note, since it was probably how he had always thought of her—young and inexperienced.

"Perhaps we ought to be thinking about your grandmother," she suggested. "Deciding what we should do in the morning if she doesn't return."

"The morning will be time enough to make decisions," he said. "Give me your shoes to carry."

The paved way through the hotel gardens had ended on the beach where the sand was thick and soft underfoot, and she kicked off her silver-thonged sandals with a feeling of relief. Charles picked them up by the heel straps.

"They're lethal," he said. "It's a wonder you don't break your neck in them."

"I don't often walk on sand."

"It will be firmer nearer the tideline," he promised. "Come and see!"

He held out his hand and she took it almost reluctantly. A man like Charles Abercrombie spelled danger.

The kerosene flares which lit the hotel pathways were soon behind them, but there was the light of a full moon on the bay to guide them towards the water. Turning their backs on Diamond Head, they walked towards the yacht basin where the tide lapped gently against the rows of enamelled hulls as the sloops and ketches and the ubiquitous catamarans huddled together in the moonlight.

"All this must be very far removed from Scotland," Elizabeth remarked.

"Very—weatherwise," he admitted, "but I dare say one would eventually grow tired of ever-blue skies and a blistering sun. Hawaii is a wonderful playground, but I doubt if I would be able to work here indefinitely."

"You're almost impatient to get home," she suggested, aware of a restlessness in him which she had noticed before. "All your responsibilities must be there, of course."

Her words fell into a lengthening silence. Charles was looking at the sea, at the palms and the moon-blanched sand, but his thoughts were far away. They had taken wing to the land of his birth, to another scene where the view was wilder and the breath of the northern wind was stern and cold. For several minutes he did not speak, gazing back in retrospect to the problems he had left behind him in distant Glen Dearg, in a house called Kilchoan. She could see his expression in the bright light of the tropical moon, the sterner set of his jaw and the hardness about his mouth, but he made no effort to answer the half-formed question which had so obviously disturbed him.

He must think me presumptuous, Elizabeth told herself, sorry now that she had ever framed the words. After all, I have no right to probe into this man's private affairs.

They walked back towards the hotel along the edge of the bay where the tide murmured against the wet sand. What wind there was scarcely ruffled the tops of the palms and the stillness all around them was a new magic which Elizabeth savoured to the full. It would be easy enough to fall in love in a place like this. Too easy, perhaps.

When they reached the garden path Charles handed over her shoes.

"I won't put them on," she decided. "It's been glorious walking without diem."

He was watching her closely, seeing the flush on her cheeks and the pleasure in her eyes, but he did not call her childish again.

"A drink?" he suggested. "A quick nightcap before you go to sleep."

"If we could have it out here."

He smiled.

"Your desire is a command in Hawaii!"

He came back with the two glasses on a tray, her Wahine's Delight and a darker potion which he said was called Mai Tai and meant 'out of this world'.

"And is it?" she asked, sitting down at a table beneath the palms.

"More or less." He turned the glass in his hands. "Occasionally we have to make the effort."

"To get away?"

"Occasionally," he said.

She could not believe that he was running away from the past, or even the future. He was too strong for that.

"Tell me about Scotland," she suggested. "About your part of it."

"What do you want to know?"

"Nothing specifically. How you live, what you do when you're not busy working in Glasgow."

He stiffened.

"I 'work in Glasgow', as you put it, most of the time."

"But—Glen Dearg. Your grandmother said it was a beautiful place."

"We're all very fond of Kilchoan, naturally," he answered slowly, "but I spend less and less of my time there nowadays. The estate is run by a manager— grieves we call them in Scotland—who is only answerable to me on major issues of policy. Grand'mere, too, keeps an eagle eye on things, so you can imagine that we're well administered." His lips relaxed in a smile.

"She's a wonderful person," Elizabeth agreed. "In this short time I feel that I've come to know her very well. I hope she isn't too upset by Monsieur Duroc's illness."

"We will find out tomorrow." He stood looking down at her from his tall height, a half-mysterious figure in the shadow of the palms. "In case we have to go there you'd better be up early."

"To Maui?"

He nodded.

"Anything can happen when my grandmother decides to go off on her own."

Elizabeth finished her drink and got slowly to her feet. Her wonderful evening was over. There would be no more whispering palms or drinks in a secluded garden under a tropical moon. She heaved a sigh of regret as she turned away.

"Hauoli?" he said, looking down at her. "Are you happy?"

The question brought sudden, foolish tears to her eyes.

"Yes," she said. "I'll never be so happy again."

"How do you know that?" he demanded sternly. "Your life is just beginning."

She turned towards him.

"How old are you, Charles?" she asked.

"Older than you by several years and far more experienced." He followed her through the foyer to the lift. "I'm twenty-seven—twenty-eight on my next birthday. How's that for a reasonable advantage?"

"It isn't much of an age-gap, and besides, age doesn't mean an awful lot."

His face darkened.

"It confers responsibility," he said. "You may see what I mean one day."

She looked at him with a sudden plea in her eyes.

"If we do have to go to Maui tomorrow," she asked, "can we go in the spirit of today? It will be so much easier if there are no recriminations."

He smiled at her temerity.

"You ask too many questions, Elizabeth," he told her. "But why not?" He bent and took the orchid from her bosom, the one which had decorated her first Wahine's Delight. "A souvenir, if you like," he said, putting it in his buttonhole. "The reminder of a promise. No recriminations!"

Elizabeth went up in the lift in a happy dream. Tomorrow was another day.

IN the morning the sun was still shining although there was a pearl grey mist clinging to the mountainsides as they drove to the airport It was early and the mist would vanish with the strengthening sun, but it chilled the air a little as they waited for the Maui plane.

It came in exactly to schedule, the half-dozen passengers filing off with their hand-luggage to be met with an orchid and a smile. Mrs. Abercrombie was not among them.

Charles turned to the reception desk, but there was no message for them.

"Your grandmother would send it to the hotel," Elizabeth suggested. "Is there another plane?"

He shook his head.

"If she hasn't come on this one there must be something wrong," he said.

"Would you like me to take a taxi back to the hotel in case there's been a message?" Elizabeth asked.

He shook his head.

"There wouldn't be any point, and we'd be wasting time. I had half a notion we'd have to go across." He looked round the busy lounge. "Stay where you are," he commanded. "I have to make some arrangements."

Did he think she would wander away merely to confuse the issue? Their day was starting badly.

Worrying about his grandmother was certainly Charles's main preoccupation, however. When he came back he told her that he had chartered a light aircraft to take them to Maui.

"I've a feeling she's in trouble," he said.

"Oh, I hope not!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Surely nothing could have happened to her when she's with friends."

"Nothing physical," he allowed. "I wasn't thinking of that. My grandmother has a cast-iron constitution which will serve her for a long time. I was thinking of involvement."

"Lame ducks," Elizabeth murmured. "You thought I might be another one even before you met me," she reminded him.

"It was an unfortunate figure of speech in your case," he admitted, "but there are others. My grandmother looks on her friends' misfortunes as peculiarly her own."

"Which is one way of saying that she cares about people."

He nodded abruptly, not willing to continue the argument.

"The plane's on the runway," he said. "If you're ready, we'll go."

They went out into the sunshine together.

"I wish we had some sort of message," Elizabeth said. "We might have been able to do something at this end."

"It's no distance to the island," he told her. "Are you warm enough?"

She had a little woollen coat over her arm which she had brought because of the mist.

"I don't think I'll need it," she said.

He helped her into the small inter-island plane which seemed very tiny standing on its own in a corner of the vast airfield, and the pilot got in beside them. He was a short, sturdily-built man in his late thirties with a weatherbeaten face which suggested that he had spent most of his life in the tropics, and he gave them a bright, friendly smile as he welcomed them aboard.

"Ever been to Maui before?" he asked conversationally. "It's a wonderful island," he went on before either of them could answer, "but, for my money, there's nothing like Hawaii itself. There's life there, and all the tradition you could possibly want. Are you after photographs? I could fly over Molokai and Lanai, if you're keen to see the waterfalls. Just say the word."

"We'd like to go direct to Maui by the shortest possible route," Charles told him. "We're not photographers."

The pilot looked disenchanted.

"Well now, here's me thinking you were a honeymoon pair!" he laughed. "But maybe next time! There's nothing keeping you from looking at the scenery, though."

Elizabeth was gazing down at what was to be seen of Diamond Head, realising that Charles was deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. They were leaving Oahu behind and the great mass of the headland lay beneath them, the same but different. From the air they could see directly into the heart of the mountain, deep down into the volcanic depth of it, and it was suddenly frightening. The friendly Diamond Head of their moonlit preamble along the beach stood revealed, in daylight, as a cruel and treacherous place of deep defiles and cavities burnished almost blood-red in the morning sun, a place of mystery and terror with all the secrets of the ages buried in its hidden fire. Dark scrolls of lava scarred its sides, running down to the blue ocean where the waves broke and curled on a rock-girt shore.

Suddenly they were beyond the island, however, and the sun was shining on the sea. There were two other islands on their route before they came to Maui, but the pilot flew between them, bearing Charles's instructions in mind. They saw nothing of Molokai but dark mountain cliffs with the ocean breaking at their feet and rainbow waterfalls pouring down their sides. Lanai, the pineapple isle, was momentarily lost in mist.

They came in to Kaarnarali, landing smoothly and expertly on the airstrip where a hire-car was waiting for them. Once again there was a volcano rearing its conical head in the background.