"Miss Chelmsford--Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the girl in the pink dress.
Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand.
"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if just remembering she, too, had a hand.
Sophie went with Polly and her friend to the veranda, which was screened in on one side with hessian to form a ball-room. Behind the hessian the walls were draped with flags, sheaves of paper daisies, and bundles of Darling pea. Red paper lanterns swung from the roof, threw a rosy glare over the floor which had been polished until it shone like burnished metal.
Polly Henty took Sophie to the piano where Mrs. Henty was playing the opening bars of a waltz. Paul beside her, his violin under his arm, stood looking with eager interest over the room where men and girls were chatting in little groups.
Mrs. Henty nodded and smiled to Sophie. Her father signalled to her, and she went to a seat near him.
Holding her hands over the piano, Mrs. Henty looked to Paul to see if he were ready. He lifted his violin, tucked it under his chin, drew his bow, and the piano and violin broke gaily, irregularly, uncertainly, at first, into a measure which set and kept the couples swaying round the edge of the ball-room.
Sophie watched them at first, dazed and interested. Under the glow of the lanterns, the figures of the dancers looked strange and solemn. Some of the dancers were moving without any conscious effort, just skimming the floor like swallows; others were working hard as they danced. Tom Henderson held Elizabeth Henty as if he never intended to let go of her, and worked her arm up and down as if it were a semaphore.
Sophie had always admired Arthur's eldest sister, and she thought Elizabeth the most beautiful-looking person she had ever seen this evening. And that pink dress--how pretty it was! What had Polly said her name was--the girl who wore it? Phyllis ... Phyllis Chelmsford....
Sophie watched the dress flutter among the dancers some time before she noticed Miss Chelmsford was dancing with Arthur Henty.
She watched the couples revolving, dazed, and thinking vaguely about them, noticing how pretty feet looked in satin slippers with high, curved heels, wondering why some men danced with stiff knees and others as if their knees had funny-bones like their elbows. The red light from the lanterns made the whole scene look unreal; she felt as if she were dreaming.
"Sophie!" her father cried sharply.
She turned his page. Her eyes wandered to Mrs. Henty, who sat with her back to her. Sophie contemplated the bow of her back in its black frock with Spanish lace scarf across it, the outline of the black lace on the wrinkled skin of Mrs. Henty's neck, the loose, upward wave of her crisp white hair, glinting silverly where the light caught it. Her face was cobwebbed with wrinkles, but her features remained delicate and fine as sculpturings in ancient ivory. Her eyes were bright: the sparkle of youth still leapt in them. Her eyes had a slight smile of secret sympathy and amusement as they flew over the roomful of people dancing.
Sophie watched dance after dance, while the music jingled and jangled.
Presently John Armitage appeared in the doorway with Nina Henty. Sophie heard him apologising to Mrs. Henty for being late, and explaining that he had stayed in the back-country a few days longer than usual for the express purpose of coming to the ball.
Mrs. Henty replied that it was "better late than never," and a pleasure to see Mr. Armitage at any time; and then he and Nina joined the throng of the dancers.
Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her.
It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his way if he wanted a waltz with her.
As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up for him.
After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty's big, old-fashioned fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in order to turn over the pages of her father's music more expertly.
She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler's little girl to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or speak to her.
Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly:
"Come here and let me look at your opals, child."
Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace.
"What splendid stones!" she said.
Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur's, with the same shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought.
"Yes," she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty about the stones.
Mrs. Henty admired the ear-rings, and looked appreciatively at the big flat stone in Mrs. Grant's brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention.
She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her.
Looking into Sophie's face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been considerably disturbed by Arthur's share in the brawl at Newton's. It was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was not sorry to see what manner of girl she was.
But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have side-tracked her about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence which looked from Sophie's eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt.
Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty's hand fell from Sophie's necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair.
But Mrs. Henty's thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She played absent-mindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes.
She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl.
If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him.
Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in her hair brushing his cheek.
"Mother!" Polly called. "For goodness' sake ... what are you dreaming of?"
The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty's reverie until Polly called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm more briskly.
After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy to each, other--at last--and were getting on, she could not afford to espouse the other girl's cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle sales were the envy of pastoralists on both sides of the Queensland border. Phyllis's inheritance and the knowledge that the interests of Warria were allied to those of Andrew Chelmsford of Yuina, would ensure a new lease of hope and opportunity for Warria.... Whereas it would be worse than awful if Arthur contemplated anything like marriage with this girl from the Ridge.
Mrs. Henty's conscience was uneasy all the same. When the dance was ended, she called Arthur to her.
"For goodness' sake, dear, ask that child to dance with you," she said when he came to her. "She's been sitting here all the evening by herself."
"I was just going to," Sophie heard Arthur say.
He came towards her.
"Will you have the next dance with me, Sophie?" he asked.
She did not look at him.
"No," she said.
"Oh, I say----" He sat down beside her. "I've had to dance with these people who are staying with us," he added awkwardly.
Her eyes turned to him, all the stormy fires of opal running in them.
"You don't _have_ to dance with me," she said.
He got up and stood indecisively a moment.
"Of course not," he said, "but I want to."
"I don't want to dance with you," Sophie said.