The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, when Sophie went out of the hut to meet Potch.
The smell of sandal-wood burning on the fireplace in the kitchen she had just left, was in the air. Such soothing its fragrance had for her! And on the shingly soil, between the old dumps cast up a little distance from the huts, in every direction, the paper daisies were lying, white as driven snow in the wan light. Sophie went to the goat-pen, strung round with a light, crooked fence, a few yards from the back of the house.
As she leaned against the fence she could hear the tinkling of a goat-bell in the distance. The fragrances, the twilight, and the quiet were balm to her bruised senses. The note of a bell sounded nearer. Potch was bringing the goats in.
Sophie went to the shed and stood near it, so that she might see him before he saw her. A kid in the shed bleated as the note of the bell became harsher and nearer. Sophie heard the answering cry of the nanny among the three or four goats coming down to the yard along a narrow track from a fringe of trees beyond the dumps. Then she saw Potch's figure emerge from the trees.
He drove the goats into the yard where two sticks of the fence were down, put up the rails, and went to the shed for a milking bucket. He came back into the yard, pulled a little tan-and-white nanny beside a low box on which he sat to milk, and the squirt and song of milk in the pail began. Sophie wondered what Potch was thinking of as he sat there milking. She remembered the night—Potch had been sitting just like that—when she told him her mother was dead. As she remembered, she saw again every flicker and gesture of his, the play of light on his broad, heavy face and head, with its shock of fairish hair; how his face had puckered up and looked ugly and childish as he began to cry; how, after a while, he had wiped his eyes and nose on his shirt-sleeve, and gone on with the milking again, crying and sniffling in a subdued way.
There was a deep note of loving them in his voice, rough and burred though it was, as Potch spoke to the goats. Two of them came when he called.
When he had nearly finished milking, Sophie moved away from the screen of the shed. She went along to the fence and stood where he could see her when he looked up.
The light had faded, and stars were glimmering in the luminous green of the sky when Potch, as he released the last goat, pushed back the box he had been sitting on, got up, took his bucket by the handle, and, looking towards the fence, saw Sophie standing there. At first he seemed to think she was a figure of his imagination, he stood so still gazing at her. He had often thought of her, leaning against the rails there, smiling at him like that. Then he remembered Sophie had come home; that it was really Sophie herself by the fence as he had dreamed of seeing her. But her face was wan and ethereal in the half-light; it floated before him as if it were a drowned face in the still, thin air.
"She's very like my old white nanny, Potch," Sophie said, her eyes glancing from Potch to the goat he had just let go and which had followed him across the yard.
"Yes," Potch said.
"She might almost be Annie Laurie's daughter," Sophie said.
"She's her grand-daughter," Potch replied.
He put the bucket down at the rails and stooped to get through them. Before he took up the bucket again he stood looking at her as though to assure himself that it was really Sophie in the flesh who was waiting for him by the fence. Then he took up the bucket, and they walked across to Michael's hut together.
Potch dared scarcely glance at her when he realised that Sophie was really walking beside him—Sophie herself—although her eyes and her voice were not the eyes and voice of the Sophie he had known. And he had so often dreamed of her walking beside him that the dream seemed almost more real than the thing which had come to pass.
Sophie went with him to the lean-to, where the milk-dishes stood on a bench under the window outside Michael's hut. She watched Potch while he strained the milk and poured it into big, flat dishes on a bench under the window.
Paul came to the door of their own hut. He called her. Sophie could hear voices exclaiming and talking to Paul and Michael. She supposed that the people her father had said were coming from New Town to see her had arrived. She dreaded going into the room where they all were, although she knew that she must go.
"Are you coming, Potch?" she asked.
His eyes went from her to his hands.
"I'll get cleaned up a bit first," he said, "then I'll come."
The content in his eyes as they rested on her was transferred to Sophie. It completed what the fragrances, those first minutes in the quiet and twilight had done for her. It gave her a sense of having come to haven after a tempestuous journey on the high seas beyond the reef of the Ridge, and of having cast anchor in the lee of a kindly and sheltering land.
Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the kitchen.
"Here she is," Paul said.
Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her.
"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called:
"H'llo, Sophie!"
And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!"
Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again. The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness.
"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!"
"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me that scared of you—saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms round you—not for the life of me."
She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too.
"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway.
And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the room.
"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!"
Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie.
"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get her to wait till this evening to come along."
"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly.
"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a word about it!"
The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost, the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door.
"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they came to her.
She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other woman on the Ridge—Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had done as long as Sophie could remember.
Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call. Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant.
"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply.
"Thank you, Bill," she replied.
Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night, Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did not know whether he would go into the room or not.
Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff, gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it, those who saw him knew.
"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him.
"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said.
The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley.
He held the flowers out to her.
"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a perfume!"
Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men.
He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the talk Paul's voice was raised querulously:
"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been with you...."
Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling with a hearty guffaw.
"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son, just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch:
"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-"
All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a way which meant much more than the words—singing from their hearts, every man and woman of them.
Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said good-night.
"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let Sophie get to bed early.
"I will," Sophie replied.
Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and George followed them.
"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this field since you went away."
Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes.
"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily.
"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck."
"So he has," George Woods agreed.
"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said.
"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to show it to me to-night."
"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"—he turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses—"I reck'n we'll have to stay for this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too much of a good thing."
"Right," Potch replied.
He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room.
"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said, "and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it, Michael?"
"Four hundred," Michael said.
"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked.
Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering.
"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I daresay he'll be letting her go soon."
He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie the stone before selling it.
Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin, skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red, weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening—a thirsting, eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin, lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool.
Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The emotion in the room made itself felt through her.
"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said.
Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table. Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the flame of the candle.
"Oh!"
Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm.
The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered exclamations went up:
"Now, she's showin'!"
"God, look at her now!"
Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty pool of the stone.
"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous.
Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of miraculous and mysterious beauty.
"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie."
Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes wide....
After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying:
"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"
She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered stars—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst—out across the earthen floor.
Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of those stars—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst.
She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was saying.
When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to listen; tried to understand what he was saying.
"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking.
Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly:
"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"
She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze. Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently:
"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you liked with, really. That was what I meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think of it any more. I don't want to think of it any more."
"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal—that I bring people bad luck like opal...."
"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you get through opal is when you can't get enough of it—so the only bad luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of you."
"Potch!"
Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and exclamation.
On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being throbbed.
"Don't think of it any more," he begged.
"But it was your luck—your wonderful opal—and ... I broke it, Potch. I spoilt your luck."
"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie. Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it.... This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because you're here that I can't think of anything else."
Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying abstractedly, wearily.
There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch. His instincts, sensitive as the antennæ of an insect, wavered over her, trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!"
Later she said:
"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ... not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it was before...."
"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to read her thought.
"But look what I've done," she said.
Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him moving his restraint.
"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our hearts—just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George and the rest of them."
"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like any of you think."
Potch's grip on her hand tightened.
"You're you—and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said.
Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and Michael I knew would—but the others ... I thought they'd remember ... and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"—a smile showed faintly in her eyes—"I thought she'd see to that."
"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night."
"Was he?"
Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us here ... we—we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again."
Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance.
"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...."
"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress. "But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't bother you ... I want just to stand by—and help you all I know how."
"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were here."
Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she looked at him; her face was grave and still.
"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else, once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so tired."
The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath from them in the lingering kiss she gave.
When she had laid her head back on his shoulder sometimes, closing her eyes, an expression of infinite rest coming over her face, Potch had gazed at it, wondering what world of thought lay beneath that still, sleep-like mask as, it rested on his shoulder; what thought or emotion set a nerve quivering beneath her skin, as the water of some still pool quivers when an insect stirs beneath it.
Sophie had no tricks of sex with Potch. She went to him sometimes when ghosts of her mind were driving her before them. She went to him because she was sure that she could go to him, whatever her reasons for going. With Potch there was no need for explanations.
His quiet strength of body and mind had something to do with the rest and assurance which his very presence gave her. It was like being a baby and lying in a cradle again to have his arm about her; no harm or ill could reach her behind the barrier they raised, Sophie thought. She knew Potch loved her with all the passion of a virile man as well as with a love like the ocean into which all her misdeeds of commission and omission might be dropped. And she had as intimate and sympathetic a knowledge of Potch as he had of her. Sophie thought that nothing he might do could make her care less, or be less appreciative of him. She loved him, she said, with a love of the tenderest affection. If it lacked an irresistible impulse, she thought it was because she had lost the power to love in that way; but she hoped some day she would love Potch as he loved her—without reservations. For the time being she loved him gratefully; her gratitude was as immense as his love.
Potch divined as much; Sophie had not tried to tell him how she felt about him, but he understood, perhaps better than she could tell him. His humility was equal to any demand she could make of him. He had not sufficient belief in himself or his worth to believe that Sophie could ever love him as he loved her: he did not expect it. The only way for him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it.
Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them.
The days were blessed and peaceful to Sophie, too; but she, also, was afraid that something might happen to disturb them. She wanted to marry Potch in order to secure them, and to live and work with him on the Ridge. She wanted to live the life of any other woman on the Ridge with her mate. Life looked so straight and simple that way. She could see it stretching before her into the years. Her hands would be full of real things. She would be living a life of service and usefulness, in accordance with the ideal the Ridge had set itself, and which Michael had preached with the zeal of a latter-day saint. She believed her life would shape itself to this future; but sometimes a wraith in the back-country of her mind rose shrieking: "Never! Never!"
It threw her into the outer darkness of despair, that cry, but she had learned to exorcise its influence by going to Potch and lifting her lips for him to kiss.
"What is it?" he asked one day, vaguely aware of the meaning of the movement.
Before the reverence and worship of his eyes the wraith fled. Sophie took his face between her hands.
"Oh, my dear," she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, "I do love you ... and I will love you, more and more."
"You don't have to worry about that," Potch said. "I love you enough for both of us.... Just think of me"—he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it gently—"like this—your hand—a sort of third hand."
When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking the Rouminofs' first home—near where they had played when they were children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the dumps.
They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind of their voices.
They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie returned to them, perplexed by his reticence.
"I don't understand, Potch," she said on one occasion. "You found out that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went over to Jun's ... and told them you were going to tell the boys.... They must have known you would tell. Maud——"
Potch's expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, arrested her thought.
"Maud——" she murmured again. "I see," she added, "it was just Maud——"
"Yes," Potch said.
"That explains a good deal." Sophie's eyes were on the distant horizon of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained like rose coral, lying on the earth about her.
"What does it explain?" Potch asked.
"Why," Sophie said, "for one thing—how you grew up. You've changed since I went away, Potch, you know...."
His smile showed a moment.
"I'm older."
"Older, graver, harder ... and kinder, though you always had a genius for kindness, Potch.... But Maud——"
Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile thoughtfully.
"I understand," she said.
Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes.
"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said.
"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men—because of her."
"That's right," Potch agreed.
"And—you don't now?"
"No."
"I saw her—Maud—in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said slowly. "She was selling opal...."
"Did she show you the stones?"
"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said.
"Michael?" Potch's face clouded.
"She didn't show them to me, but I know who saw them all—he bought them—Mr. Armitage."
"The old man?"
"No, John."
After a minute Sophie said:
"Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, too.... Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose—but was there anything more than that?"
"It's hard to say." Potch spoke reluctantly. "There's nothing more than a bit of guesswork in my mind ... and I suppose it's the same with Michael. I haven't said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn't to me, so it's better not to mention it."
"There's a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away," Sophie remarked musingly.
"The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers' church, and Mrs. Watty's veranda?"
"I don't mean that," Sophie said. "It's the people and things ... you, for instance, and Michael——"
"Michael?" Potch exclaimed. "He's wearing the same old clothes, the same old hat."
Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey.
"He's different somehow ... I don't quite know how," she said. "There's a look about him—his eyes—a disappointed look, Potch.... It hurt him when I went away, I know. But now—it's not that...."
As Potch did not reply, Sophie's eyes questioned him earnestly.
"Has anything happened," she asked, "to make Michael look like that?"
"I ... don't know," Potch replied.
Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed:
"There is something, Potch! I don't want to know what it is if you can't tell me. I'm only worried about Michael.... I'd always thought he had the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks——Oh, I can't bear to see him look as he does.... And he seems to have lost interest in things—the life here—everything."
"Yes," Potch admitted.
"Only tell me," Sophie urged, "is this that's bothering Michael likely to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?"
Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to answer the question. Then he said slowly:
"I ... don't know. I really don't know anything, Sophie. I happened to find out—by accident—that Michael's pretty worried about something. I don't rightly know what, or why. That's all."
The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the cutting-wheel which had been her mother's, cleared and cleaned up the room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her several small stones to face and polish for him.
Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before she left the Ridge, but it was a long time before Sophie went about as she used to. After a while, however, she got into the way of walking over to see Maggie Grant or Martha M'Cready in the afternoon, occasionally; but she never talked to them of her life away from the Ridge; they never spoke of it to her.
Only one thing had disturbed her slightly—seeing Arthur Henty one evening as she and Martha were coming from the Three Mile.
He had come towards them, with a couple of stockmen, driving a mob of cattle. Dust rose at the heels of the cattle and horses; the cattle moved slowly; and the sun was setting in the faces of the men behind the cattle. Sophie did not know who they were until a man on a chestnut horse stared at her. His face was almost hidden by his beard; but after the first glance she recognised Arthur Henty. They passed as people do in a dream, Sophie and Martha back from the road, the men riding off the cattle, Arthur with the stockmen and cattle which a cloud of dust enveloped immediately. The dark trees by the roadside swayed, dipped in the gold of the sunset, when they had passed. The image of Arthur Henty riding like that in the dust behind the cattle, his face gilded by the light of the setting sun, came to Sophie again and again. She was a little disturbed by it; but it was only natural that she should be, she thought. She had not seen Arthur since the night of the ball, and so much had happened to both their lives since then.
She saw him once or twice in the township afterwards. He had stared at her; Sophie had bowed and smiled, but they had not spoken. Later, she had seen him lounging on the veranda at Newton's, or hanging his bridle over the pegs outside Ezra Smith's billiard saloon, and neither her brain nor pulse had quickened at the sight of him. She was pleased and reassured. She did not think of him after that, and went on her way quietly, happily, more deeply content in her life with Michael and Potch.
As her natural vigour returned, she grew to a fuller appreciation of that life; health and a normal poise of body and soul brought the faint light of happiness to her eyes. Michael heard her laughing as she teased Paul sometimes, and Potch thrilled to the rippled cadenza of Sophie's laughter.
"It's good to hear that again," Michael said to him one day, hearing it fly from Rouminof's hut.
Potch's glance, as his head moved in assent, was eloquent beyond words.
Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together.
Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll the track.
A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous muster of the show horses of the district—rough-haired nags, piebald and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina stallion Black Harry.
People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's. Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many of them as were needed were run up for the occasion.
Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest pitch.
Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs. Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money.
Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she said—people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns. Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut.
Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway.
"Are you there, Martha?" she called.
"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!"
Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face.
"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down. I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full over there—with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a crowd at the races, Sophie."
Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks' houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, Sophie exclaimed to herself.
Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could dance like a two-year-old.
"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America."
"I'm not going," Sophie said,
"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball—the first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course you're going, Sophie!"
Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon was nearly over.
"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say? And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with her...."
Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naïve and genial admiration of what Martha had said.
"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron flashing vigorously. "It just won't be—the ball—and everything looking as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge. Everybody'll be that disappointed——"
"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried.
"I don't think; I know."
A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes.
"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither."
"Potch?"
"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy—and going to marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking.
"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: 'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.' That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...."
Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to think that Potch was not a good enough match for her.
"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're all coming over from Warria—Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs. Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...."
She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon sky.
"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ... we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'"
As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had years before. She could see the people in it—figures swaying down the long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford—their faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and now.
"I'd give anything for you to be there—looking your best," Martha continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...."
"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me—as he used to be," Sophie murmured.
Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off her kitchen.
"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the paper.
She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph on its page.
"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang. Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no better reason, it is said, than that she isécœuréof us and our life—the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms. And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more."
The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes.
"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak when she had finished reading.
"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made meécœuré—sick to the heart, that is—of the life over there, Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to come home.... And I came."
Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck.
"My lamb," she whispered.
Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously.
"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said.
"All right, dearie!"
Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress.
"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said.
"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair dying to wear them."
Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line beside a newly-starched petticoat.
"You will, won't you?"
Sophie shook her head.
"I don't think so, Martha."
Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, giggling cries.
She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the ball was in the air.
Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced. She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced.
Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice, eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter of a girl's laughter—they were all in the air now as they had been then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to them—they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her?
Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face, trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it what Sophie was thinking.
"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged.
Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed her.
"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?"
"Course you could, darling," Martha said.
Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she stood off from her.
"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing—and to be young again, Martha?"
It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. At a little distance the big building showed dark and ungainly against the sky. Its double doors were open, and a wash of dull, golden light came out from it into the twilight, with the noise of people laughing and talking.
"It's like old times, isn't it, Potch"—Sophie's fingers closed over Potch's arm—"to be going to a Ridge dance?"
There was a faint, sweet stirring which the wind makes in the trees within her, Sophie realised. It was strange and delightful to feel alive again, and alive with the first freshness, innocence, and vague happiness of a girl.
Potch looked down on her, smiling. He was filled with pride to have her beside him like this, to think they would go into the hall together, and that people would say to each other when they saw them: "There's Sophie and Potch!"
That using of their names side by side was a source of infinite content to Potch. He loved people to say: "When are you and Sophie coming over to see us, Potch?" or, "Would you mind telling Sophie, Potch?" and give him a message for Sophie. And this would be the first time they had appeared at an assembly of Ridge folk together.
He walked with his head held straight and high, and his eyes shone when he went down the hall with Sophie. What did it matter if they called him Potch, the Ridge folk, "a little bit of potch," he thought, Sophie was going to be Mrs. Heathfield.
"Here's Sophie and Potch," he heard people say, as he had thought they would, and his heart welled with happiness and pride.
Nearly everybody had arrived when they went into the hall; the first dance was just beginning. Branches of budda, fleeced with creamy and lavender blossom, had been stuck through the supports of the hall. Flags and pennants of all the colours in the rainbow, strung on a line together, were stretched at the end of the platform. On the platform Mrs. Newton was sitting at the piano. Paul had his music-stand near her, and behind him an old man from the Three Mile was nervously fingering and blowing on a black and silver-mounted flute. Women and girls and a few of the older men were seated on forms against the walls. Several young mothers had babies in their arms, and children of all ages were standing about, or sitting beside their parents. By common consent, Ridge folk had taken one side of the hall, and station folk the upper end of the other side.
Sophie's first glance found Martha, her white dress stiff and immaculate, her face with its plump, rosy cheeks turned towards her, her eyes smiling and expectant. Martha beamed at her; Sophie smiled back, and, her glance travelling on, found Maggie and Bill Grant, Mrs. George Woods and two of her little girls; Mrs. Watty, in a black dress, its high neck fastened by a brooch, with three opals in, Watty had given her; and Watty, genial and chirrupy as usual, but afraid to appear as if he were promising himself too much of a good time.
Warria, Langi-Eumina, and Darrawingee folk had foregathered; the girls and men laughed and chattered in little groups; the older people talked, sitting against the wall or leaning towards each other. Mrs. Henty looked much as she had done five years before; James Henty not a day older; but Mrs. Tom Henderson, who had been Elizabeth Henty, had developed a sedate and matronly appearance. Polly was not as plump and jolly as she had been—a little puzzled and apprehensive expression flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent.
The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge loved. Roy O'Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: "Take y'r partners for a waltz!" Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael—no one on the Ridge was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a threepenny piece!
Sophie smiled at Martha's happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton's, he had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other.
Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did.
His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through the crowd.
"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said.
"But I do mean it, Sophie," he said.
As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything—with a dead earnestness.
After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing.
"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie whispered.
"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!"
Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was claiming her for a polka mazurka.
The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them.
"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added.
"Why has he come?" Michael asked.
"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out whether the men will do business with him again."
Michael's gesture implied it was useless to talk of that.
Sophie continued: "But you know what I said, Michael. I can't be happy until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the men here.... You must do that for me, Michael. They know I'm going to marry Potch ... and if they see there's no ill feeling between John Armitage and me, they'll believe I was more to blame than he was—if it's a question of blame.... I want you and Potch to stand by me in this, Michael."
Potch's eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and sure. But Michael showed no relenting.
Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie.
She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them than playing a game they had learned to play rather well.
Sophie said: "It is you really?"
He took the hand she held to him. "But you knew I was coming? You had my letter?"
"Of course ... but——"
"And my word is my bond."
The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage's voice, and the perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised people who were near them.
Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded Armitage with grave, quiet eyes.
"Good evening, Michael! Evening, Potch!" Armitage said.
Michael did not reply; but Potch said:
"Evening, Mr. Armitage!" And Sophie covered the trail of his words, and Michael's silence, with questions as to the sort of journey Armitage had made; a flying commentary on the ball, the races, and the weather. Michael moved away as the next dance was beginning.
"Is this my dance, Sophie?" Armitage inquired.
Sophie shook her head, smiling.
"No," she said.
"Which is my dance?" The challenge had yielded to a note of appeal.
Sophie met that appeal with a smile, baffling, but of kindly understanding.
"The next one."
She danced with Potch, appreciating his quiet strength, the reserve force she felt in him, the sense that this man was hers to lean on, hold to, or move as she wished.
"It's awfully good to have you, Potch," she murmured, glancing up at him.
"Sophie!"
His declarations were always just that murmuring of her name with a love and gratitude beyond words.
While she was dancing with Potch, Sophie saw Armitage go to the Hentys; he stood talking with them, and then danced the last bars of the waltz with Polly Henty.
When she was dancing with Armitage, Sophie discovered Arthur Henty leaning against the wall near the door, looking over the dancers with an odd, glowering expression. He had been drinking heavily of late, she had heard. Sophie wondered whether he was watching her, and whether he was connecting this night with that night at Warria, which had brought about all there had been between herself and John Armitage—even this dancing with him at a Ridge ball, after they had been lovers, and were no longer anything but very good friends. She knew people were following her dancing with John Armitage with interest. Some of them were scandalised that he should have come to the Ridge, and that they should be meeting on such friendly terms. She could see the Warria party watching her dancing with John Armitage, Mrs. Arthur Henty looking like a pastel drawing against the wall, and Polly, her pleasant face and plump figure blurred against the grey background of the corrugated iron wall.
Armitage talked, amiably, easily, about nothing in particular, as they danced. Sophie enjoyed the harmonious rhythm and languor of their movement together. The black, misty folds of her gown drifted out and about them. It was delightful to be drifting idly to music like this with John, all their old differences, disagreements, and love-making forgotten, or leaving just a delicate aroma of subtle and intimate sympathy. The old admiration and affection were in John Armitage's eyes. It was like playing in the sunshine after a long winter, to be laughing and dancing under them again. And those stiff, disapproving faces by the wall spurred Sophie to further laughter—a reckless gaiety.
"You look like a butterfly just out of its chrysalis, and ... trying its wings in the sun, Sophie," Armitage said.
"I feel ... just like that," Sophie said.
After that Armitage had eyes for no one but her. He danced with two or three other people. Sophie saw him steering Martha through a set of quadrilles; but he hovered about her between the dances. She danced with George Woods and Watty, with the Moffats of Langi-Eumina, and some of the men from Darrawingee. Men of the station families were rather in awe of, and had a good deal of curiosity about this Fallen Star girl who had "gone the pace," in their vernacular, and of whose career in the gay world on the other side of the earth they had heard spicy gossip. Sophie guessed that had something to do with their fluttering about her. But she had learned to play inconsequently with the admiration of young men like these; she did so without thinking about it. Once or twice she caught Potch's gaze, perplexed and inquiring, fixed on her. She smiled to reassure him; but, unconsciously, she had drawn an eddy of the younger men in the room about her, and when she was not dancing she was talking with them, laughingly, fielding their crude witticisms, and enjoying the game as much as she had ever done.
As she was coming from a dance with Roy O'Mara she passed Arthur Henty where he stood by the door. The reek of whisky about him assailed Sophie as she passed. She glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. He swung over to her where she had gone to sit beside Martha M'Cready.
"You're going to dance with me?" he asked, a husky uncertainty in his voice.
"No," Sophie said, looking away from him.
"Yes."
The low growl, savage and insistent, brought her eyes to his. Dark and sunbright, they were, but with pain and hunger in their depths. The unspoken truth between them, the truth which their wills had thwarted, spoke through their eyes. It would not be denied.
"There's going to be an extra after supper," he said.
"Very well."
What happened then was remote from her. Sophie did not remember what she had said or done, until she was dancing with Arthur Henty.
How long was it since that night at Warria? Was she waiting for him as she had waited then? But there were all those long years between. Memories brilliant and tempestuous flickered before her. Then she was dancing with Arthur.
He had come to her quite ordinarily; they had walked down the room a few paces; then he had taken her hand in his, and they had swung out among the dancers. He did not seem drunk now. Sophie wondered at his steadier poise as she moved away with him. The butterfly joy of fluttering in sunshine was leaving her, she knew, as she went with him. She made an effort to recapture it. Looking up at him, she tried to talk lightly, indifferently, and to laugh, but it was no good. Arthur did not bother to reply to anything she said; he rested his eyes in hers, possessing himself of her behind her gaze. Sophie's laughter failed. The inalienable, unalterable attraction of each to the other which they had read long before in each other's eyes was still there, after all the years and the dark and troubled times they had been through.