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shan’t destroy them. Only don’t mention Tahiti to me again as long as I live.”

“Not quite like the books,” Tarneverro nodded. He sat, mysterious even in that bright world, at Shelah’s side. “I discovered that for myself, long ago. You're staying here for some time, I take it?”

“A month, I hope,” the star answered. “A couple of weeks still to go on the picture, and then, I trust, a fortnight’s rest. I want it badly, Tarneverro. I’m tired—tired.”

“You need not tell me that,” he said. “I have eyes.”

He had, indeed, eyes; eyes that were cold and piercing and rather disquieting. The car sped on past the old royal palace and the judiciary building, and turned off into Kalakaua Avenue.

“It was so good of you to come over here,” Shelah told him.

“Not at all,” he replied evenly. “I started the day after I got your cable. I was due for a vacation—my work, you know, is not precisely restful. Then, too, you said you needed me.” That was enough. That will always be—enough.”

Julie began to chatter about the islands: she mentioned the warm caressing waters of Waikiki, the thrill of haunting native music in the purple night, the foreign pageant of the streets.

“All of which,” smiled Shelah, “sounds very much to me like James Bradshaw in one of his more lyric moods.”

Julie laughed. “Yes, I guess I was quoting Jimmy. Did you meet him, Shelah?”

“I met him,” the star nodded.