"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?"