"It's Mr. Armitage," Mirry said. "The young one. He's not as nice as the old man, my father says—and he doesn't know opal as well—but he gives a good price."
They had reached the curve of the road where one arm turns to the town and the other goes over the plains to Warria. Sophie slipped from the horse.
"We'll take the short cut here," she said.
She stood looking at Arthur Henty for a moment, and in that moment Henty knew that she had sensed his thought. She had guessed he was afraid of having looked ridiculous trailing along the road with these children. Sophie turned away. The young Flails bounded after her. Henty could hear their laughter when he had ridden out some distance along the road.
From the slope of a dump Sophie saw him—the chestnut and her rider loping into the sunset, and, looking after him, she finished her song.
"Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar,
Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar!
Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà,
A fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà!"
Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be,
For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee!
My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee,
And my last breath will be for thee, dear name.
The long, sweet notes and rippled melody followed Arthur Henty over the plains in the quiet air of late afternoon. But the afternoon had been spoilt for him. He was self-conscious and ill at ease about it all.
CHAPTER X
"Mr. Armitage is up at Newton's!" Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw him at his back-door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news.