He turned away from her, went down the ball-room, and out through the doorway in the hessian wall. Everyone had gone to supper. Mrs. Henty had left the piano. Paul himself had gone to have some refreshment which was being served in the dining-room across the courtyard. From the square, washed with the silver radiance of moonlight which she could see through the open space in the hessian, came a tinkle of glasses and spoons, fragments of talking and laughter. Sophie heard a clear, girlish voice cry: "Oh, Arthur!"
She clenched her hands; she thought that she was going to cry; but stiffening against the inclination, she sat fighting down the pain which was gripping her, and longed for the time to come when she could go home and be out in the dark, alone.
John Armitage entered the ball-room as if looking for someone. Glancing in the direction of the piano, he saw Sophie.
"There you are, Sophie!" he exclaimed heartily. "And, would you believe it, I've only just discovered you were here."
He sat down beside her, and talked lightly, kindly, for a moment. But Sophie was in no mood for talking. John Armitage had guessed something of her crisis when he came into the room and found her sitting by herself. He had seen the affair at Newton's, and knew enough of Fallen Star gossip to understand how Sophie would resent Arthur Henty's treatment of her. He could see she was a sorely hurt little creature, holding herself together, but throbbing with pain and anger. She could not talk; she could only think of Arthur Henty, whose voice they heard occasionally out of doors. He was more than jolly after supper. Armitage had seen him swallow nearly a glassful of raw whisky. His face had gone a ghastly white after it. Rouminof had been drinking too. He came into the room unsteadily when Mrs. Henty took her seat at the piano again; but he played better.
Armitage's eyes went to her necklace.
"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said.
Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me--there's a stone for every one. This is Michael's!"--she touched each stone as she named it--"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that."
Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile.
"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here am I--come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of stuff in your brooch."
"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed.
"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New England spinster."
Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it.
Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in this out-of-the-way part of the world.
John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her disappointment of the earlier part of the evening.
"May I have the next dance, Sophie?" he inquired.
Sophie glanced up at him.
"I'm not dancing," she said.
Her averted face, the quiver of her lips, confirmed him in his resolution. He took in her dress, the black opals in her ear-rings swinging against her black hair and white neck. She had never looked more attractive, he thought, than in this unlovely dress and with the opals in her ears. The music was beginning for another dance. Across the room Henty was hovering with a bevy of girls.
"Why aren't you dancing, Sophie?" John Armitage asked.
His quiet, friendly tone brought the glitter of tears to her eyes.
"No one asked me to, until the dance before supper--then I didn't want to," she said.
The dance was already in motion.
"You'll have this one with me, won't you?"
John Armitage put the question as if he were asking a favour. "Please!"
he insisted.
Putting her arm on his, Armitage led Sophie among the dancers. He held her so gently and firmly that she felt as if she were dancing by a will not her own. She and he glided and flew together; they did not talk, and when
the music stopped, Mr. Armitage took her through the doorway into the moonlight with the other couples. They walked to the garden where, the orange trees were in blossom.
"Oh!" Sophie breathed, her arm still on his, and a little giddy.
The earth was steeped in purest radiance; the orange blossoms swam like stars on the dark bushes; their fragrance filled the air.
Sophie held up her face as if to drink. "Isn't it lovely?" she murmured.
A black butterfly with white etchings on his wings hovered over an orange bush they were standing near, as if bewildered by the moonlight and mistaking it for the light of a strange day.
Armitage spread his handkerchief on a wooden seat.
"I thought you'd like it," he said. "Let's sit here--I've put down my handkerchief because there's a dew, although the air seems so dry."
When the music began again Sophie got up.
"Don't let us go in yet," he begged.
"But----" she demurred.
"We'll stay here for this, and have the next dance," Armitage said.
Sophie hesitated. She wondered why Mr. Armitage was being so nice to her, understanding a little. She smiled into his eyes, dallying with the temptation. John Armitage had seen women's eyes like that before; then fall to the appeal of his own. But in Sophie's eyes he found something he had not seen very often--a will-o'the-wisp of infinite wispishness which incited him to pursue and to insist, while it eluded and flew from him.
When she danced with John Armitage again, Sophie looked up, laughed, and played her eyes and smiles for him as she had seen Phyllis Chelmsford do for Arthur. At first, shyly, she had exerted herself to please him, and Armitage had responded to her tentative efforts; but presently she found herself enjoying the game. And Armitage was so surprised at the charm she revealed as she exerted herself to please him, that he responded with an enthusiasm he had not contemplated. But their mutual success at this oldest diversion in the world, while it surprised and delighted them, did not delight their hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Henty were surprised; then frankly scandalised. Several young men asked Sophie to dance with them after she had danced with John Armitage. She thanked them, but refused, saying she did not wish to dance very much. She sat in her chair by the piano except when she was dancing with Mr. Armitage, or was in the garden with him.
CHAPTER XVI
"See Ed. means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr.
Armitage," Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal before starting on his all-night drive into Budda.
Newton remembered afterwards that John Armitage did not seem as interested and jolly as usual. Ordinarily he was interested in everything, and cordial with everybody; but this evening he was quiet and preoccupied.
"Hardly had a word to say for himself," Peter Newton said.
Armitage had watched Ed. bring the old bone-shaking shandrydan he called a coach up to the hotel, and put a couple of young horses into it. He had a colt on the wheel he was breaking-in, and a sturdy old dark bay beside him, a pair of fine rusty bays ahead of them, and a sorrel, and chestnut youngster in the lead. He had got old Olsen and two men on the hotel veranda to help him harness-up, and it took them all their time to get the leaders into the traces. Bags had to be thrown over the heads of the young horses before anything could be done with them, and it took three men to hold on to the team until Ed. Ventry got into his seat and gathered up the reins. Armitage put his valise on the coach and shook hands all round. He got into his seat beside Ed. and wrapped a tarpaulin lined with possum skin over his knees.
"Let her go, Olly," Ed. yelled.
The men threw off the bags they had been holding over the horses' heads.
The leaders sprang out and swayed; the coach rocked to the shock; the steady old wheeler leapt forward. The colt under the whip, trying to throw himself down on the trace, leapt and kicked, but the leaders dashed forward; the coach lurched and was carried along with a rattle and clash of gear, Ed. Ventry, the reins wrapped round his hands, pulling on them, and yelling: