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they were shown to their table. "We can at least hope that the food is good."
    Elizabeth's pulses began to race with a new excitement, her eyes glowing as she studied the menu.
    "I'm going to be madly adventurous and try something local," she declared. "How about you?"
    "It seems fitting," he agreed. "They're bound to do it better than fish and chips."
    She laughed. Charles could evidently unbend when he liked and, after all, there was nothing they could do about being thrown together in the circumstances.
    If he resented the fact, he certainly didn't show it once he had given their order and they had settled down to enjoy the meal.
    When the cabaret began he moved his chair round to her side of the table for a better view. They were very near, their arms touching.
    "I'm going to enjoy this," said Elizabeth.
    A line of graceful Polynesian girls glided on to the stage, each one as lovely as the next, their willowy bodies swaying to the rhythm of the music as their bare feet moved across the floor. They were dressed in long floating chiffon skirts with leis of tiny mauve orchids about their necks and a bracelet of orchids on one arm. This wasn't hula, Elizabeth realised; it was something far more subtle, a native dance whose origin went back into the mists of time.
    "Watch their hands," Charles advised. "They say so much with them. My grandmother, who comes here often, knows the language of these movements. believe they mostly depict natural phenomena—the movement of waves, the wind in the palms, the sun rising on a bright morning to start another day."
    The dancers, their long dark hair floating out behind them, their skirts drifting from side to side, circled the stage, their small, delicate hands pressed close against their breasts.
    "What do they say now?" Elizabeth whispered.
    "Something about love, I think—that love is the finest gift of all." His tone was sceptical.
    "You know their language!"
    "My grandmother translates at the drop of a hat," he answered. "I've heard about Hawaii since I was a child, and I've been to Maui."
    The dance had ended with the girls clustered on the floor, their skirts spread around them to give the effect of a delicate tropical flower. It was sheer poetry of motion, exquisite beauty simply presented for the joy of the beholder.
    The female entertainer who followed was a large, buxom Polynesian woman in the traditional printed muu-muu who stood regarding her audience for several minutes with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
    "I hope she isn't going to attempt the hula," Charles said. "It would be too much !"
    "I bet she could, when she was younger," Elizabeth whispered back.
    "What's the matter, honey?" The wicked black eyes were glinting straight down at Elizabeth. "Is he trying to lead you astray?"
    There was general laughter, which confused Elizabeth until Charles put his arm lightly about her shoulders.
    "It's all in the act," he declared. "A good opening gambit."
    The large woman was a polished artist.
    "Once, a long time ago," Charles said, "I saw Hilo Hattie doing her act in Hawaii, It was like this one. She was a wonderful performer, and although she must have been twelve stone or more she ended up dancing the hula as skilfully as any of the chorus girls."
    "I'll be disappointed if I don't see the hula," Elizabeth confessed.
    "You will." His arm slid away from the back of her chair, the kindly gesture of protection apparently forgotten. "It's a feature of all cabaret out here. People expect it and the management obliges. It will probably be kept for the final act."
    When the drums began to beat out the rhythm of the hula and the dancers filed back in grass skirts and three-layered leis with coronets of flowers in their hair Elizabeth sat forward in her seat, her lips parted a little, her cheeks gently flushed. It was a wonderful experience, the rhythm mounting to a crescendo as the dance finished and the smiling dancers moved to the front of the stage.
    Under cover of the thunderous