Armitage's eyes went to her necklace.
"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said.
Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me—there's a stone for every one. This is Michael's!"—she touched each stone as she named it—"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that."
Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile.
"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here am I—come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of stuff in your brooch."
"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed.
"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New England spinster."
Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it.
Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in this out-of-the-way part of the world.
John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her disappointment of the earlier part of the evening.