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Cape, and then on to Australia and the islands—kick around for as long as it takes to find a good spot to settle. We’ll make a go of it, Phil.”
    “I’m afraid we won’t.” Her tones were steady again; she had made them so. “Maybe you consider the useful part of your life over, Clin, but mine hasn’t begun yet.”
    “It’s no mean task to keep a man happy, and I guarantee you plenty of excitement. I’ve been in love a dozen times before, but not this way. I’ve never touched you, have I?”
    “You knew it would have spoiled everything if you had.”
    “Quite true.” He spoke reasonably, confidently. “I could see you weren’t to be rushed, so I waited. But I mean to take you with me, Phil. I’ll wear you down within the next week.”
    “So you sail in a week?” she managed airily. “We’ll all turn out to wish you luck.”
    His eyes narrowed down at her, and his mouth, which had never before drawn her attention, compressed in a faintly unpleasant smile.
    “You shelter behind the other men here. You think that I won’t dare to kiss you against your will because of them. Typically a woman’s get-out, but a dirty one, Phil.”
    “I don’t agree. Why should I tolerate distasteful kisses?”
    “You haven’t found my friendship distasteful.”
    “No. I’ve enjoyed it—till today. Let’s leave it like that, Clin.”
    “Which means,” he said through closed teeth, “that emotionally I've made no inroads. Well, I suppose it’s my own fault for using the time so foolishly. I was stupid enough to believe it more important that you should trust me. It doesn’t matter any more.”
    He twisted and pinned down her shoulders, bent and sought roughly for her evading mouth. Phil struggled. She brought up her knee hard into his stomach, wrenched -herself to her feet and ran.
    Clin did not follow her. When, gasping and weak in the limbs, she looked back from the top of the hill, he was still lying on his side where she had left him.
    She was not so much disgusted as sickened and disappointed by the episode. Later, when Manoela set out to retrieve the couple of garments Phil had left on the beach, she was back within a minute. The shorts and blouse, folded and weighted by a stone, hung over Phil’s front gate, and from between them fell a scrap of paper which read:
    Forgive me, Phil. Don't blame a chap for trying his luck .
    She stood wondering. It was Clin’s writing, but hardly, she thought, Clin’s sentiment. She hadn’t forgotten the viciously tight teeth and the animal dilation of his nostrils as she fought to avoid his lips. He was offering a swift apology to prevent her from confiding in one of the men. He needn’t have worried. She had had pleasure from Clin’s companionship and wasn’t likely to cause unnecessary trouble for him before his departure.
    During the following days she saw him only from her veranda when he passed on his way to and from the waterfront. He smiled at her, tipped his helmet and jauntily continued along the track. She asked Matt if a farewell drink party had been arranged, but the trader shook his head.
    “Clin’s a deep one. Keeps saying he isn’t ready to leave, but his cabin trunk has been locked and labelled for days. No use saying goodbye yet.”
    The week Clin had mentioned slipped by and another began. There were several freighters in the harbour, mainly the cacao fleet, a tanker and a couple of small coasters. Clin would have to make for the mainland and take his chance on a boat to the Cape.
    She was designing one of her clay figures one evening, a woman with a negroid mouth and nose and a thick, weight-carrying neck curving into square shoulders, when there was a brief tattoo on the main door. While she was hesitating the knock came again and she stood up, smiling a little. Whoever it was had passed unchallenged by the police-boy. That meant Julian; he had come at this hour that first evening when she had met him at the door with a gun.
    She went into