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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.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    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