Unknown by Unknown

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,