Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/177

 barefooted, ran up the garden terraces to the white villa above, and disappeared within a Saracen doorway. This was the entrance to the studio, Miss Orbison knew, and by the time she had ascended to it, Eugene Rennie had come out of it to welcome her.

"You're painting?" she asked. "I'm interrupting?"

He would have liked to tell her the truth, which was that he wanted to go on working; but having taken note of her expression, he said that he had finished for the day; and they sat down together upon the wide marble steps of the topmost terrace.

"Something about Charles?" he said.

"Yes."

"He's no worse?"

"Of course every hour he's an hour worse," she said with a tremor in her voice; but she controlled it manfully. "He doesn't look worse, hour by hour—he couldn't well do that—but no matter how he looks, the end of his suffering is always just that much nearer in sight. The pain is never unbearable, and often he's hardly conscious of it—perhaps because he's so used to it. The doctors told me precisely how it would be, and everything's confirmed them; I never doubted they were right. If only that specialist