Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did.
His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through the crowd.
"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said.
As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything--with a dead earnestness.
After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing.
"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie whispered.
"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!"
Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was claiming her for a polka mazurka.
The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them.
"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added.
"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out whether the men will do business with him again."