Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/134

 to the window. Orbison was reclining just below in the warm full sunshine, with his heavy rug pulled close about him; and no one else was upon the upper terrace or in the pergola that bordered it. Gardeners were at work among the flower beds beyond the terrace; and a group of German travellers stood talking by the railing above the precipice; but at that distance their voices were not heard more loudly here than the droning of the bees among the flowering vines that grew upon the old stone walls of the hotel. Smoke massed itself placidly upon the shoulders of the volcano; hazy cliffs of lilac rose from a pale-blue sea, and the air seemed gilded with the southern morning sunlight. No young heroine of a romantic drama could have wished a stage better set for her entrance.

Claire selected the prettiest pair of patent-leather slippers that she owned, and, seated upon a stool before her dressing table, thoughtfully put them on. "Now where you going to take me?" she whispered excitedly to her feet, when they were thus becomingly encased.

But, as she well knew they would, they took her to the pergola upon the upper terrace. She appeared there a few minutes later, bright-eyed, high-coloured,