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As she slipped into the soft lacy cashmere vest-dress which she had bought at the boutique that afternoon, Jade found herself wondering how many women had gone with Laurent into Port Louis at night—Port Louis which was shrouded in mystery.

'That bodice,’ Laurent said when he saw her, ’and straps on your shoulders, accentuate the slimness of you—and the goldness, for you have turned very gold from the sun.’

‘Thank you. For your information it's a camisole bodice and shoestring straps.’ She kept her voice light.

‘Into the bargain, the belt you are wearing ....’

‘A tooled gold leather belt and the shoes,’ she stretched out a foot, ‘sling-back ....’ Laughing a little she said, ‘Okay? But in any case, I happen to be reserved about flattery. There’s no need to flatter me during the island romance we’re about to set into motion.’

‘But the romance makes more sense to you now, surely?’ His eyes met hers.

‘In what way?’ She waited.

‘What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Our island romance will convey this message to a good number of curious islanders. It will go to show that the affair between Nicole de Speville and Marlow Lewis has left you quite unmoved.’

'And that’s why you suggested this island romance? You knew this was coming to me?’ She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice and her eyes.

'A romance, even a casual island holiday romance, is something to be enjoyed,' he said, ‘not examined. Let us face facts, we both had motives when we decided to set out on it. Right?’

‘Oh, yes, she replied, deliberately sarcastic. ‘Well, shall we go?’

Driving on the island at night was quite an experience.

‘It’s so dark,' said Jade, turning to look at him. 'Isn’t it? The island, although small, seems so vast and lonely and the distance to your Port Louis long.'

‘Are you nervous?’ he asked, taking her hand. ‘Of this darkness?’

‘A little,' she laughed shyly.

They passed through one or two haphazard settlements, but the lights were not bright. The roads were still very bad in places. Some were still washed away, apparently, but Laurent appeared to know where others could be found to link up.

As they drove into Port Louis he said, ‘In parts, it is very much like Chinatown, with its restaurants and gambling dens.'

‘You make me feel nervous,’ she said.

‘One has to know where to go here.’

‘And you know where to go?' She turned to look at him, loving him.

‘Yes, of course. This is the seaport of Mauritius, but I suppose you know that.' Still holding her hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed her fingers.

‘I don't know much about Mauritius—only what Marlow wrote to me in his letters.’

‘I do not wish to be reminded of Marlow Lewis,' he snapped.

‘No more do I,’ Jade replied.

The Chinese quarter glowed with light, but in places the cobbled alleyways appeared almost frightening.

‘Port Louis certainly seems to be over-populated, if this is how it looks at night,’ she commented.

‘We are about to turn into Royal Street,’ Laurent told her, ‘which is the heart of Chinatown. During the day laundry flutters side by side with shop-signs.’

‘Where are we going to eat?' she asked. She studied his profile in the half light and, as usual, she was physically aware of him. When she thought of leaving Mauritius she knew a moment of despair so absolute that it made her catch her breath.

‘The restaurant is in a part of Port Louis which still seethes with activity when most of Port Louis is asleep. You are not worried, are you?’ As he parked the car he gave her a quick, amused glance.

‘No. You seem to know all about it.’

'Do you wish to visit a casino afterwards?’ he asked.

‘To gamble? Do you mean to—gamble?’

He laughed. ‘Only if you wish it.’

‘I don’t know how to. What do they play?’ Looking at him, she thought he was the type of man who would create instant excitement, so far as women were concerned, at the gambling tables, with his dark good looks and sexy, darkly green eyes.

‘Oh ...’ he shrugged that very French shrug of his, ‘roulette, dice, fan-tan, quatre-quarts, big and small... dominoes.'

‘Dominoes?’ Suddenly she laughed. ‘That sounds harmless enough. My grandfather used to play dominoes with me when I was a small girl.’

When they got out of the car and were standing on the pavement she said, ‘It's like Hong Kong.’

‘So? You have been to Hong Kong?’ Placing an arm about her waist, he began to lead her in the direction of the restaurant.

‘No. Only what I’ve seen in films.'

‘I will take you to Hong Kong one day. I go there to buy, from time to time.’ He spoke casually. By tomorrow he would have forgotten the remark, she was sure.

‘What about opium and opium smuggling here?’ she asked.

‘I have no nostalgia for it.' His voice was teasing.

‘I know that,’ she replied, laughing a little. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

'Have no fear,' he said, stopping to kiss her. ‘I am not taking you to a den, my darling.’

My darling. My darling .... He was not wasting any time with this holiday romance, she thought.

They dined, Cantonese-style, on a balcony overlooking the street.

‘I've never eaten shark-fin soup before,’ she told him.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked.

After a moment she said, ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Now what about fried pigeon, Cantonese style?’ Trim and elegant, tonight—but then he was always elegant—he was wearing a dark suit.

‘I don’t think so. I’ll keep thinking of the poor pigeon.’

‘You eat chicken, though?’ His eyes mocked her. Their wine arrived, and he gave his attention to it.

‘All right,’ she said, a moment later. ‘Fried pigeon, Cantonese style, and fried prawns, with bamboo sauce.’

‘Bamboo
shoots,'
he corrected.

Later he took her to the Chinese Casino, which was diagonally opposite the restaurant.

‘It is fascinating, just to watch,’ he told her.

Later, in the car on the way back to the hotel, she said, ‘It was fascinating, but a little frightening. Everybody looked so—dedicated to gambling. And now it’s so dark. The roads are so bad, after the cyclone, I don’t know how you can tell where you’re going.’

‘I am an islander now. I know where to go. By the way, I am taking you to my chalet for a nightcap, and then I will take you home.’

‘Home?’ she murmured. ‘Where is home?’

‘Home is where you make it, no?’ He turned to look at her.

‘It’s very late,’ she told him.

‘But you are on holiday, are you not?’

‘Yes, but...

He cut in, ‘You are tired and crave sleep, is that it?’

His voice was sarcastic. 'How are we to have a romance if, after each time I take you out, we return to your door where I will kiss you lightly and leave, because it is late and you are tired and
c
rave sleep?’ He moved his shoulders impatiently. ‘Before I get you to that door, we will go to my chalet first, where I will make mild love to you.’

'What do you call mild love?' While she was speaking her heart seemed to lurch crazily. She had never met a man with so much magnetism. He was a man who would cause instant excitement, anywhere. In fact, as she had surmised, he had created a rustic of female excitement as they had gone to stand at the gambling tables.

‘Obviously you are having second thoughts,' he commented.

‘No. I—I'm merely reserved as to ....’

‘How far to go?'

‘How far to go, yes—and how soon.' She swallowed. 'I’ve never done anything like this before.'

'That was a calculated chance I was prepared to take,' he told her.

There were shasta daisies and irises arranged in crystal vases in his chalet and Jade’s eyes went to the vases almost immediately. Everything was aimed towards romance. He must have known she would come.

'The flowers arc beautiful,' she said.

'Out of season. I think,' was all he said. His voice was polite. 'See the lights on the water?’ He came to stand beside her. 'The fishermen.'

’Yes, I know. At night I hear them talking,' she replied. 'They shout, from boat to boat. I see their lights.'

'So you lie awake at night?’ Placing an arm about her shoulders he asked, ‘What do you think of my beautiful jade?’ Before she could reply he said, ‘Don’t tell me that you think of the hyacinth which may soon strangle the waterways and rivers in Australia. I refuse to believe that.’

Jade was aware of a current of communication between them, sharp and exciting in its message. When he took her into his arms she made no resistance and her fingers sought the angles of his cheek and jawbones, then her arms went up and around the back of his neck and she strained towards him. He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck, her throat. Beyond the balcony, the tide pounded the reef, and influenced by the sea they kissed more ardently.

Laurent unfastened the back of her dress and she shook her head, but he went on, his hands skilled and expert.

Drawing back, she protested, ‘What about Marcelle?’

‘That is a ridiculous question at a time like this!’ He sounded angry.

‘I’ve thought about this—often,' she told him.

‘Well, don’t think about it. Beyond any doubt,
you
are all I have in mind at this moment.’

At this moment. It was like a slap in the face and she struggled free. ‘I’m not prepared to be hurried, Laurent. I
told
you.’ She felt almost sick with humiliation.

‘It would need a very jaded sensibility not to feel let down,’ he told her, releasing her. Moodily, he watched her as she went to stand by herself, doing up her dress. He made no attempt to help her.

‘I don’t really feel like a drink,’ she said, in a very small voice. After the excitement which she had been feeling, she felt numbed and unreal.

‘I'll take you to your room,' he said, and if he was angry with her he kept the anger under control.

In the days that followed, they swam and lay in the sun on one of the white or golden beaches of the reef-ringed island. They drove out to the fantastically cut mountains. Many of the roads were still in a state of disrepair owing to Cyclone Fraziska, but Laurent seemed to find others. They ate millionaire salads— palm hearts—and poor man's ‘chow-chow’. They enjoyed Mauritian cooking, a happy blend of Chinese, European and Indian recipes. From a glass-bottomed boat they admired the sea-lagoon bed, where strange ‘laces’, buttresses, shelves, fire coral, hard coral, soft coral, seaweeds and fish caused Jade delight.

Laurent was, she thought, the perfect companion. Slim, hard, faultlessly tanned, and exciting, he made ardent love to her, but if anything, she found herself responding to the dictates of her own straining body and certainly not to pressure from him. After the night at his chalet he seemed content not to rush her.

It was a time of moon shadows and night scents, sun and sea breezes.

Of Nicole de Speville and Marlow Lewis they saw nothing.

The days were going far too quickly. Soon the three weeks’ leave would be over and Jade would be back at the health clinic.

It was early morning and they had been swimming in Laurent’s private pool. ‘We are going in to Port Louis presently,’ Laurent said, rolling over to look at her.

‘What will we do there?’ she asked. She had been sunbathing on her back and looked up at him as he bent over her. Lifting her hair from her neck he put his lips there. It seemed incredible, she found herself thinking, that this was just a game with him. Her blue eyes became serious.

‘What is wrong?’ he asked.

Tracing the outline of his lips, she said, ‘We’re always eating, Mr Sevigny.'

‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her. ‘I ....’

They came apart as the young Creole lad who cleaned Laurent’s chalet said, ‘Miss Marcelle on the phone.’

Laurent said something in French under his breath. ‘Tell her I will be there in just one moment,’ he said, then Jade watched him as he went in the direction of the chalet.

While he was away she continued to lie in the sun in the pool area with its palms and tropical shrubs, cushions the colour of a newly ripened mango and sun-umbrellas. Nearby there was a blaze of purple bougainvillea. Her throat seemed to be tightening up. It was the first time that Marcelle had reminded them of her presence, unless, of course, she had phoned when they had been out.

When Laurent came back he said, ‘Well, what about Port Louis?’ He stood looking down at her and for a moment she felt like refusing. Instead she said, ‘Fine. What did she want?’ She could not bring herself to say the name Marcelle.

Shrugging carelessly, he said, ‘It was strictly a business call.' Moodily, she watched him as he bent down and reached for her hand, then he pulled her up beside him.

‘I’ll go back to my room and change,’ Jade said, beginning to look around for her short beach jacket. He found it for her and draped it about her slim, tanned shoulders. When he made to kiss her she stepped out of his arms. Her body was flawless and lithe. ‘I’ll see you later,' she said. ‘I’ll come back here.’

‘I will drive over to reception for you,’ he told her.

‘What, a few metres?’ Her light laugh was forced.

‘Is something wrong?' he asked.

‘Why ask?’ She lifted a hand. ‘See you!’

She wore a white slack suit with a spice-coloured scarf at her neck and a silk rose the same shade on her lapel, and on the drive to Port Louis she was quiet. Laurent’s manner also seemed to have changed and he made no attempt to reach for her hand and had nothing to say.

Cars, buses and lorries filled the air with carbon monoxide. Laurent felt his way past market places, cooked-food stalls and hawkers. The streets, in places, were so narrow that Jade could almost reach out from the car and touch these things and the people concerned with them.

Chinese names hung from signboards and there was, she noticed, a bar called The Fat Cat. A heat-haze hung over the harbour, which also appeared cluttered. Laundry hung from balconies on old apartment buildings, beneath which there were shops which seemed to be beating with Chinese and Indian music The pavements seemed to be crammed with signboards.