"It will make this difference," Sophie said. "I'm heart and soul in the life here, I've told you. And if you do as you say you're going to ... instead of thinking of you in the old, good, friendly way, I'll have to think of you as the enemy of all that is of most value to me."
"You mean," John Armitage cried, his voice broken by the anger and chagrin which rushed over him, "you mean you're going to take on Henty—that's what's at the back of all this."
"I mean," Sophie said steadily, her eyes clear green and cool in his, "that I'm going to marry Potch, and if Michael and all the rest of the men of the Ridge go over to you and your scheme, we'll fight it."
CHAPTER XII
"Are you there, Potch?" Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael's hut, a wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her.
Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in his hands.
"He's not here," he said.
His voice was as distant as though he were talking to a stranger. He had been trying to read, but his mind refused to concern itself with anything except the night before, and the consequences of it. His eyes had followed a trail of words; but he had been unable to take any meaning from them. Sophie! His mind hung aghast at the exclamation of her. She was the storm-centre. His thoughts moved in a whirlwind about her. He did not understand how she could have worn that dress showing her shoulders and so much of her bared breast. It had surprised, confused, and alarmed him to see Sophie looking as she did in that photograph Dawe Armitage had brought to the Ridge. The innocence and sheer joyousness of her laughter had reassured him, but, as the evening wore on, she seemed to become intoxicated with her own gaiety.
Michael had watched her dancing with vague disquiet. To him, dancing was rather a matter of concern to keep step and to avoid knocking against anyone—a serious business. He did not get any particular pleasure out of it; and Sophie's delight in rhythmic movement and giving of her whole being to a waltz, amazed him. When Armitage came, her manner had changed. It had lost some of its abstract joyousness. It was as if she were playing up to him.... She had been much more of his world than of the world of the Ridge; had displayed a thousand little airs and superficial graces, all the gay, light manner of that other world. When she was dancing with Arthur Henty, Michael had seen the sudden drooping and overcasting of her gaiety. He thought she was tired, and that Potch should take her home. The old gossip about Arthur Henty had faded from his memory; not the faintest recollection of it occurred to him as he had seen Sophie and Arthur Henty dancing together.