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from the chair at his side to take her favourite perch on the veranda rail. “You look after the shipping of the cacao, don’t you, Roger?”
    “It’s part of my work—yes.”
    “What’s the name of the British vessel due in at the week-end?”
    “The Bassington .”
    “I believe it sails next Wednesday. Does it call at Lagos?”
    “I think so—we’re sending cinchona to a druggist there. She’s a new boat.” He paused. “Why the sudden interest in shipping?”
    She shrugged. “One has to take an interest in something.”
    Roger was easily sidetracked. She led him to expand about his life in England and the impulse which had driven him to apply for the post on Valeira. Charmed by her sympathy and attention, he talked on and on, till Matt rollicked by in his dusty sedan and yelled an emphatic “Good night.”
    “Matt’s right,” said Roger ruefully. “I’ve overstayed disgracefully.”
    “I’ve enjoyed it,” she assured him as they walked the path. “Usually I bolt myself within doors at sundown, and I miss these lovely hours of coolness.”
    He had halted and was gazing down at her. In the pale radiance of the stars she was slender and sweet and very feminine, and Roger felt a rush of need and tenderness that had to find outlet. He held her shoulders and kissed her mouth, became deliriously aware of her quickened breathing, and kissed her again, more thoroughly. Then he wrenched himself away, vanished through the gate and soon was again visible some way off, his white-clad figure racing back to his bungalow.
    Pleasantly stirred, Phil went indoors and locked up. That night she slept as soundly as a child.
    Next day Matt made his promised trip to the manager’s house on the plantation. He chose twelve-thirty as the most likely time to catch Julian at home, and grousingly wore a white shirt and tie, and a pair of neat brown shoes which cramped his feet. When he came back about two hours later the tie waved a red tongue from his trousers pocket, his shoe-laces dangled and the shirt displayed the customary expense of hairy chest.
    He sprawled in Phil’s lounge, smoking one of the inevitable cheroots with annoying complacency.
    “I had a genuine lunch,” he said, “and Caswell opened a bottle of the best. I thought he’d be snooty—give me ten minutes and show me the door. After all, I do take good pickings from his natives, and quite often the wholesalers send trash that the poor blighters pay well for.”
    “You’re as necessary to his workers as he is,” she declared. “Do hurry up and explain what happened.”
    “All in good time, lovey. There’s nothing exciting to report. You know, Phil, you handled him wrong. With his sort it doesn’t do to be defiant—it puts his back up and made him determined to have his way.”
    “He hasn’t any right to interfere with me. Anyone with a Portuguese visa can live here.”
    “True enough, but milk-and-water law doesn’t operate in these parts. The plantation manager holds the key position, and if he decides to deport a lone young woman no one will dispute it, least of all the English and Portuguese authorities.”
    “He’s a tyrant!”
    Matt grinned. “He called you names, too. A pig-headed young idiot, a blind little fool, a damned nuisance, and one or two others. He also said that you were intelligent beyond your years, and you needed teaching a lesson, but he’d rather your education were furthered elsewhere. A complete analysis, and all for nothing.”
    “Did you sit back and let him say those things about me?”
    “They slipped out during lunch. No vehemence—just statements of fact.” Matt shifted and blew ash from his shirt.
    “How did you leave it?” she demanded exasperated. “On Sunday night the skipper of the Bassington will dine with Caswell. He’s asked me along, too.”
    “Nice for you,” she said witheringly. “Three tough men over a guinea-pig. You can save argument by letting them know at the start that when I