‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn humbly. ‘I saw your one-man show a year ago in London.’

‘Did you?’ she said without interest.

‘I should have guessed at once. Isn’t there a sort of relationship between this painting and the “In the Stadium”?’

‘Yes.’ She moved her eyebrows quickly. ‘That’s quite true. The arrangement’s much the same—radiating lines and a spotted pattern. Same feeling. Well, I’d better go down to my cabin and unpack.’

‘You joined the ship at Suva?’

‘Yes. I noticed this subject from the main deck. Things shove themselves at you like that sometimes. I dumped my luggage, changed, and came up.’

She slung her box over her shoulder and picked up the sketch.

‘Can I—?’ said Alleyn diffidently.

‘No, thanks.’

She stood for a moment staring back towards Fiji. Her hands gripped the shoulder-straps of her paintbox. The light breeze whipped back her short dark hair, revealing the contour of the skull and the delicate bones of the face. The temples were slightly hollow, the cheek-bones showed, the dark-blue eyes were deep-set under the thin ridge of the brows. The sun caught the olive skin with its smudge of green paint, and gave it warmth. There was a kind of spare gallantry about her. She turned quickly before he had time to look away and their gaze met.

Alleyn was immediately conscious of a clarification of his emotions. As she stood before him, her face slowly reddening under his gaze, she seemed oddly familiar. He felt that he already knew her next movement, and the next inflexion of her clear, rather cold voice. It was a little as though he had thought of her a great deal, but never met her before. These impressions held him transfixed, for how long he never knew, while he still kept his eyes on hers. Then something clicked in his mind, and he realized that he had stared her out of countenance. The blush had mounted painfully to the roots of her hair and she had turned away.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alleyn steadily. ‘I’m afraid I was looking at the green smudge on your cheek.’

She scrubbed at her face with the cuff of her smock.

‘I’ll go down,’ she said, and picked up the sketch.

He stood aside, but she had to pass close to him, and again he was vividly aware of her, still with the same odd sense of surprised familiarity. She smelt of turpentine and paint, he noticed.

‘Well—good evening,’ she said vaguely.

Alleyn laughed a little.

‘Good evening, madam.’

She started off down the ladder, moving sideways and holding the wet sketch out over the hand-rail. He turned away and lit a cigarette. Suddenly a terrific rumpus broke out on the deck below. The hot cheap reek of frangipanni blossoms drifted up, and with it the voice of the success of the ship.