Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/24

22 half-open door, from which issued husky strains of a bass voice chanting,

Teresa tapped at the door.

"Come in," said the voice.

She entered, but the sculptor was not visible. In the half-twilight of the studio the crowd of his vast cold images, his "family," as he called them, loomed up with stony chastity. They were all of heroic size or more. In the middle of the room a colossal horse, a palæolithic horse, arched his neck and lifted a fore-foot. If the foot fell, the floor would certainly sink. But Teresa had seen it poised now for two years in the same spot. The horse perhaps would stand there until it or the building crumbled to pieces. Even the sculptor did not expect anyone to buy it.

warbled Erhart behind a screen where he was making coffee.

Teresa mimicked the dying fall with which he rendered the last words; and Erhart burst from behind the screen, still in his loose linen working-apron, his powerful arms bare to the elbows, a steaming coffee-pot in one hand.