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Over the high back of a chair she draped the towel. She stood there, her breathing still uneven, taking in the room in all its sparse impersonality. If only Julian would show up.

“Well, well,” he drawled from behind her. “Are you taking shelter or have you come to make tea?”

Phil swung round, saw his mocking glint and the powerful tanned shoulders, and chest left exposed by a singlet, and rightly concluded that he had never been on the river at all today. He had been resting within the mosquito net all the time. Her fears dissolved in fury.

She brought up her fist and he gripped it against him so that her fingers contracted and slackened nervelessly upon the vibrant warmth of his chest. The room was night-dark, stabbed by lightning, shuddering with thunder. The lean brown face above hers was diabolically self-assured. He twisted, kicked shut the door and dropped her wrist, freeing himself to haul her close to his arms.

She strained to his kiss, throat stretched, her hands pressing at his back as if she could never let him go. His mouth moved to her cheek and up to her temple, and she felt him crushing her shoulders and moving his hands over her, down to her waist. Julian’s hands, strong and compelling; his heart striking into her breast.

It was raining, tumbling on the palm-thatch roof in an avalanche, but Phil didn’t hear it. At last her body was alive, and singing.

THE sun was past its zenith, but the bay still lay breathless in the shadow of Goanda headland. In the bowl of the bay palms swayed their green umbrellas. The only sound was the suck of the waves among the roots of the mangroves.

Phil, supine on the dried silt, felt the sun’s heat on her thighs through the thick overhead branches, heard the lapping of the surf, and gazed up at a new, enthralling angle of Julian’s jawbone. He was sitting beside her, exhaling an occasional arrow of smoke, and looking at the sea. His air was one of arrogant content.

“I’ve made him like that,” Phil exulted within herself. “There’s still a shell, but I’m inside with him, part of the man, part of his heart.”

“I wonder what Matt and the others thought when the freighter went back without you?” she murmured.

“That there was a woman I couldn’t tear myself away from.”

She laughed. “They’d never believe it. They’ll decide you’ve been sick and had to recover under the doctor’s supervision.”

“That’s a half-truth, anyway. I shall have to shiver and wear a top-coat as I go aboard next Sunday.”

A chill, like a touch of autumn, passed across Phil’s face. “Any tea left in the flask?”

“About a cupful.”

“Let’s share it.”

She sat up, emptied the sweetened, dark liquid into a cup and offered it.

“You first,” he said, jabbing the remains of his cigarette into the sand.

When the cup was put away again he slipped back on crossed arms and she drew her feet under her and sat regarding him, all of youth and eagerness in her eyes.

“Are you happy, Julian?”

His mouth twitched. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be at this moment.”

“Do you ever remember the plantation when you’re with me?”

“Only to be glad I’m not there.”

“Julian,” she tried to keep the tenseness from her voice, “could you ever have sent me right away from you?”

“I don’t know.” His tones were steady, but he had closed his eyes. “I could have done it six months ago. If you’d agreed, I’d have had a shot at it last week.”

“But not now?”

“I’m not a lunatic.” Again the smile twitching at his mouth. “What are you trying to make me say . . . that I love you?”

“It would be rather ... nice.”

“All men say it, to all women, and for that reason it’s an expression to be distrusted.”

She took his hand between hers. “You haven’t hesitated so long with other women, have you?”

“It never got me anywhere worth going. This feeling between you and me is very new. It’s wiser to advance gently.” His eyes opened, and though they scoffed at her, they also held tenderness. She was encouraged to brush her mouth over the hairs on the back of his hand.

“It doesn’t matter, so long as you do,” she said.

He laughed a little at the deliberate naivety. “You’d twist a man’s soul and pretend it grew that way.”

“I used to be afraid yours
was
twisted,” she told him soberly, “You were so bitter, so inhumanly intent upon your work.”

“Don’t take too much for granted, little one. A man of my age has changed as much as he’s likely to. Remember that, when I disappoint you.”

She was silent. He raised his head, reached and pulled her down with him. His breath came warmly across her lips.

“You’re sweet,” he said. ‘Try not to get hurt.”

A plea impossible to obey, for is not anguish half of love?

The days and nights were passing so quickly. Days up the river or in the bay, when Julian sometimes told her of his wild boyhood in Cornwall or of other countries in which he had lived and planted. And hot, scented nights, which awakened an undreamed-of sensuality in Phil’s nature.

She looked neither back nor far forward. But as his time with her narrowed she was seized with a desperation that showed itself in a reluctance to spend the briefest spell in the hospital. Doctor and nurse agreed that the jaunts with Julian were for her good; they were too busy to spare more than a word or two at dinner. Her conscience demurred, but not seriously.

Gaily she prepared the picnics and dressed in fresh linens. Her skin bloomed and her shoulders went back. She seemed to mature all at once with a new and exquisite fullness of love, and every sense was sharpened by the knowledge that Julian was keenly aware of her swift flowering.

He was as keyed up for her touch as she for his. She had never guessed so much power could be locked up in her body.

He could tease and jibe, reiterate that mortals were predominantly fickle and flick away sentimentality as though it was dust on his sleeve, but as far as it was in him to love anyone, he loved Phil. She felt it in every sinew, every racing drop of blood.
As far as it was in him to love anyone.

Wasn’t that the crux of her intimacy with him ... an acceptance of his love as three-parts physical? She was too grateful for the miracle of his wanting her to demand more than he was willing, as yet, to yield.

On Friday he began throwing articles into his valise. “Shan’t need this again,” he said. Or: “Mustn’t forget that. Matt doesn’t stock my size.” He hadn’t much to pack, but she knew that he kept the valise open on a chair expressly for her sake. He had yet to learn that reminders only prolonged and intensified the pain of parting.

His last evening, after dinner, the doctor consulted him about the cheap gramophone in the lounge. Julian did his best with the poor, damp-corroded thing, and it was late when he and Phil entered the rest-house.

He lit the lamp and turned it low, shed his white jacket and emptied the pockets. She sat on a long, roughly-carved stool, and followed his movements, a cigarette greying between her fingers. The white jacket was carelessly folded and packed, a clean singlet, shirt and khaki drill shorts laid ready for the morning. From a drawer he took socks and a handkerchief, a couple of notebooks, some Portuguese money and an emergency flask of brandy, all of which he arrayed on the chest.

“All set,” he said, and lowered himself to the stool beside her, stretching his legs in front of him.

His arm slid round her back. In the yellow half-light his face was sculptured in bronze, its angles sharp with shadows. He relieved Phil of the cigarette and trod it out on the floor. Then he bent his head and gave her a swift, hard kiss.

“I know what you’re wishing, Phil—I’m wishing it, too. I’m not going to enjoy tomorrow any more than you are, but we were both aware it would have to come.”

“I haven’t groused, have I?”

“My sweet, you’ve shown remarkable restraint. I’ve seen the question in your eyes a dozen times and been thankful for whatever it was that kept you from voicing it. Any other woman would have cried and clung.”

“You’d loathe that,” she said with surprising evenness, “and, in any case, your plans would remain unchanged by tears and pleading. But some time soon you will let me come to Valeira, won’t you?”

“I hope it will be possible.” He pressed her shoulder. “I’d feel a hell of a lot safer with you here, though, in the care of Dr. Grenfell. That chap at Valeira mission is hopelessly fuddled most of the time. And apart from health, there’s still the obstacle of your being the only woman on the plantation. What with this new man, Davenport, and, in a few weeks, an untried cadet from England—I can see the Roger Crawford business starting all over again.”

If only she could have said: “Who’d dare to try on anything with the manager’s wife?” But some syllables were impossible of articulation.

“You’ll come next week-end?” she asked instead.

He nodded. “On Friday evening till Sunday. Now that we’re organized over there I should be able to get away most week-ends. For the present we shall have to be satisfied with that.”

Not a bit of use arguing. When Julian made known a decision it was already part of his future mode of living. Suddenly she craved the pleasure of spurning him.

“What if I grow tired of Goanda, and move up towards Lagos?”

“Don’t you dare!” He sprang up and carried her with him, bunching the scant flesh of her arms so that she winced with physical pain; his eyes were sparkling oddly. “If you did, I’d come after you and make you wish you hadn’t.”

“Sweet torture,” she whispered, and laid her lips to his throat.

At dawn the boy brought coffee and Julian’s breakfast. Phil, still in pyjamas and her hair cloudy, felt none of the voluptuous drowsiness of other mornings. She sat opposite to him, holding the tepid coffee and sipping, the lump near her larynx as harsh and round as if she had swallowed a peach-stone.

When he was ready to go the boy was told to carry the valise down to the waiting dinghy. Julian-picked up his helmet and turned upon her a small controlled smile.

“So long, little one. Keep the hut dusted.”

A quick kiss and he was gone. Phil’s breath shivered in her lungs, and a terrible thought took possession: this was as bad as—worse than—Nigel’s death.

A day or two had to elapse before she could think of Julian without a tempest of longing. The fear and uncertainty sidled in, niggling frets that robbed her of appetite and will. It wasn’t important that he had avoided the trouble of explaining their marriage to Dr. Grenfell, but he might have asked where she kept her wedding ring. He might have remarked casually, “Handy our being married already, wasn’t it?” and made her life joyous and beautiful.

Since the day of the storm he had referred neither to the marriage nor to its annulment. He was well enough acquainted with her mentality to have at least an inkling of her inbred desire for security; why otherwise would she have hung on in Valeira after Nigel died? Had he purposely held off the subject; did he consider it less dangerous to postpone it? He had everything pigeonholed, every reaction of hers forestalled. She could be sure that not one fact of their relationship had escaped him. In a way, that certainty was comforting. If his love for her did not include the devouring quality of Phil’s for him, it went sufficiently deep to keep him concerned on her behalf.

Friday evening came. She dressed in white linen and ran to the bend of the river, straining her ears for the slap of water against a paddle. Quite soon the sound came, and she stood poised and taut, hidden from human eyes by the trees. She saw him seated in the boat and watched for his sudden smile. It came.

He bade the boy pull in and, when he had stepped on to the grass, gave the boat a shove along to the landing-stage.

They were alone . . . and wordless. He was staring at her steadily with a bright flame in his eyes. His hand came up to rake familiarly through the banner of coppery hair, and to hold her head while he kissed her lips with the ferocity of a week’s hunger. He bent and kissed the blue vein inside her wrist; he kissed the tender angle within her elbow, and came back to her mouth with possessive intensity.

“It’s been so long,” he said.

Phil, heart and eyes brimming, moved her cheek against the close-shaven chin. How completely groundless and foolish had been her doubts.

DR. GRENFELL said: “Well, young lady, I suppose it’s pointless harking back to the conversation we had some time ago? Caswell’s weekly descent upon us appears to have developed into a habit. I’m not deceived into believing he comes merely to help me start a farm colony for the natives. I’m exceedingly grateful to him, of course. He has the perfect brain for colonizing and a genuine interest in native problems. Still, I think I’m right in stating that he comes more to see you than to teach farming to the Africans?”

Phil didn’t even blush. “I think you’re right, too, Dr. Grenfell. I shall not go up the Coast and train as a nurse, after all.”

“I guessed that, but I mention it because Charles Metcalfe, who is chief medico at the Levalle Institute of Tropical Hygiene, is on his way to see me. You’ll meet him and hear about his work.”

Phil’s chief concern was that Dr. Metcalfe should arrive between week-ends. It would be too bad if the man clashed with Julian.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she answered politely, visualizing a second silvery head bent in conference with Dr. Grenfell’s.

In age and appearance Charles Metcalfe was an agreeable surprise. As he also had the decency to sail into Goanda on a Monday afternoon, Phil was disposed not to resent him.

He was above average height and slim. His features, smooth and aquiline, had the pallid tinge of all indoor workers in the tropics, but his eyes, a soft dark brown, held an infinity of kindness and good humour. Though he could not have been more than a year or two over thirty, the flat black hair had receded in two arcs above his brow, endowing him with a scholarly air which he detested. Phil liked him at sight, and after three days, contact decided that he was one of the nicest men she had ever known. Charles was so utterly normal, and, she was sure, predictable. You’d know where you were with such a man.