A heavy, brooding silence hung between them. Sophie broke it.
“Michael says you’re going away?”
“Yes,” Potch replied.
Sophie shifted the pebbles on the earth about her abstractedly.
“Don’t leave me, Potch,” she cried, scattering the pebbles suddenly. “I don’t know what will become of me if you go away. … I wanted us to get married and settle down.”
Potch turned to her.
“You don’t mean that?”
“I do,” Sophie said, all her strength of will and spirit in the words. “I’m afraid of myself, Potch … afraid of drifting.”
Potch’s arms went round her. “Sophie!” he sobbed. But even as he held her he was conscious of something in her which did not fuse with him.
“But you love him!” he said.
Sophie’s eyes did not fail from his.
“I do,” she said, “but I don’t want to. I wish I didn’t.”
His hands fell from her. “Why,” he asked, “why do you say you’ll marry me, if you … if—”
Despair and desperation were in the restive movement of Sophie’s hands.
“I’m afraid of him,” she said, “of the power of my love for him … and there’s no future that way. With you there is a future. I can work with you and Michael for the Ridge. … You know I do care for you too, Potch dear, and I want to have the sort of life that keeps a woman faithful … to mend your clothes, cook your meals, and—”
Potch quivered to the suggestions she had evoked. He saw Sophie in a thousand tender associations—their home, the quiet course their lives might have together. He loved her enough for both, he told himself.
His conscience was not clear that he should take this happiness the gods offered him, even for the moment. And yet—he could not turn from it. Sophie had said she needed him; she wanted the home they would have together; all that their life in common would mean. And by and by—he stirred to the afterthought of her “and”—she wanted the children who might come to them. … Potch knew what Sophie meant when she said that she cared for him. Whatever else happened he knew he had her tenderest affection. She kissed him familiarly and with tenderness. It was not as Maud had kissed him, with passion, a soul-dying yearning. He drove the thought off. Maud was Maud, and Sophie Sophie; Maud’s most passionate kisses had never distilled the magic for him that the slightest brush of Sophie’s dress or fingers had.
Sophie took his hand.
“Potch,” she said, “if you love me—if you want me to marry you, let us settle the thing this way. … I want to marry you. … I want to be your loving and faithful wife. … I’ll try to be. … I don’t want to think of anyone but you. … You may make me forget—if we are married, and get on well together. I hope you will—”
Potch took her into his arms, an inarticulate murmur breaking his voice.
XIII
Potch had looked towards Michael’s hut before he went into his own, next evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking to the mine, Potch said:
“He’s back; did you know?”
Michael guessed whom Potch was speaking of. “Saw him … as I was walking out along the Warria road yesterday afternoon,” he said; “and then at Newton’s. … He looks ill.”
Potch did not reply. They did not speak of Charley again, and yet as they worked they thought of no one else, and of nothing but the difficulties his coming would bring into their lives. For Potch, his father’s return meant the revival of an old shame. He had been accepted on his merits by the Ridge; he had made people forget he was Charley Heathfield’s son, and now Charley was back Potch had no hope of anything but the old situation where his father was concerned, the old drag and the old fear. The thought of it was more disconcerting than ever, now too, because Sophie would have to share the sort of atmosphere Charley would put about them.
And Michael was dulled by the weight of the fate which threatened him. Every day the consciousness of it weighed more heavily. He wondered whether his mind would remain clear and steady enough to interpret his resolve. For him, Charley’s coming, and the enmity he had gauged in his glance the night before, were last straws of misfortune.
John Armitage had put the proposition he outlined for Sophie, to Michael, the night before he left for Sydney. He had told Michael what he knew, and what he suspected in connection with Rouminof’s opals. Michael had neither defended himself nor denied Armitage’s accusation. He had ignored any reference to Paul’s opals, and had made his position of uncompromising hostility to Armitage’s proposition clear from the outset. There had not been a shadow of hesitation in his decision to oppose the Armitages’ scheme for buying up the mines. At whatever cost, he believed he had no choice but to stand by the ideas and ideals on which the life of the Ridge was established and had grown.
John Armitage, because of his preconceived notion of the guilty conscience Michael was suffering from, was disappointed that the action of Michael’s mind had been as direct to the poles of his faith as it had been. He realised Sophie was right: Michael would not go back on the Ridge or the Ridge code; but the Ridge might go back on him. Armitage assured himself he had a good hand to play, and he explained his position quite frankly to Michael. If Michael would not work with him, he, John Armitage, must work against Michael. He would prefer not to do so, he said. He described to several men, separately, what the proposals of the Armitage Syndicate amounted to, in order that they might think over, weigh, and discuss them. He was going down to Sydney for a few
