She was a little afraid. But she knew she had always pleased Ridge folk when she sang to them, so she put back her head and sang a song of youth and youthful happiness she had sung on the veranda at Newton's before. It did not matter that the words were in Italian, which nobody understood. The dancing joyousness and laughing music of her notes carried the men with them. The applause was noisy and enthusiastic. Sophie laughed, delighted, yet almost afraid of her success.
Big and broad-shouldered, Bully Bryant stood at a little distance from her, in front of everybody. Arthur Henty, leaning against the wall near the door of the bar, smiled softly, foolishly, when she glanced at him. He had been drinking, too, and was watching, and listening to her, with the same look in his eyes as Bully.
Sophie caught the excitement about her. An exhilaration of pleasure thrilled her. It was crude wine which went to her head, this admiration and applause of strangers and of the men she had known since she was a child. There was a wonderful elation in having them beg her to sing. They looked actually hungry to hear her. She found Arthur Henty's eyes resting on her with the expression she knew in them. An imp of recklessness entered her. Her father beat the air as if he were leading an orchestra, and she threw herself into the Shadow Song, singing with an abandonment that carried her beyond consciousness of her surroundings.
She sang again and again, and always in response to an eager tumult of cheers, thudding of feet, joggling of glasses, chorus of broken cries: "En-core, encore, Sophie!" An instinct of mischief and coquetry urging, she glanced sometimes at Arthur, sometimes at Bully. Then with a glance at Arthur, and for a last number, she began "Caro Nome," and gave to her singing all the glamour and tenderness, the wild sweetness, the aria had come to have for her, because she had sung it so often to Arthur when they met and were walking along the road together. She was so carried away by her singing, she did not realise what had happened until afterwards.
She only knew that suddenly, roughly, she was grasped and lifted. She saw Bully's face flaming before her own, gazed with terror and horror into his eyes. His face was thrown against hers—and obliterated.
"Are you all right?" someone asked after a moment.
Awaking from the daze and bewilderment, Sophie looked up.
John Armitage was standing beside her; Potch nearby. They were on the outskirts of the crowd on the veranda.
"Yes," she said.
The men on the veranda had broken into two parties; one was surging towards the bar door, the other moving off down the road out of the town. Michael came towards her.