Potch looked at Michael. It was his intention to stand by Michael if, and for as long as, Michael needed him.
"It's all right, Potch," Michael said; but his eyes did not go to Potch's as they usually did. There was a strange, grave quality of aloofness about Michael. Potch hesitated, studying his face; but Michael dismissed him with a glance, and Potch went out of the hut.
CHAPTER XIV
The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of trees drew a blurred line between earth and sky.
Potch and Sophie lay out on the plains, on their backs in the dried herbage, watching the sunset—the play of light on the wide sweep of the sky—silently, as if they were listening to great music.
They had been married some days before in Budda township, and were living in Potch's hut.
Sophie and Potch had often wandered over the plains in the evening and watched the sunset; but never before had they come to the sense of understanding and completeness they attained this evening. The days had been long and peaceful since they were living together, an anodyne to Sophie, soothing all the restless turmoil of her soul and body. She had ceased to desire happiness; she was grateful for this lull of all her powers of sense and thought, and eager to love and to serve Potch as he did her. She believed her life had found its haven; that if she kept in tune with the fundamentals of love and service, she could maintain a consciousness of peace and rightness with the world which would make living something more than a weary longing for death.
All the days were holy days to Potch since Sophie and he had been married. He looked at her as if she were Undine making toast and tea, cooking, washing dishes, or sweeping and tidying up his hut. He followed her every movement with a worshipful, reverent gaze.
Soon after Sophie's return, Potch had gone to live in the hut which he and his father had occupied in the old days. He had put a veranda of boughs to the front of it, and had washed the roof and walls with carbide to lessen the heat in summer. He had turned out the rooms and put up shelves, trying to furnish the place a little for Sophie; but she had not wanted it altered at all. She had cleared the cupboard, put clean paper on the shelves, and had arranged Potch's books on them herself.