The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes.
"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak when she had finished reading.
"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me _écoeoeuré_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there, Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to come home.... And I came."
Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck.
Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously.
"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said.
Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress.
"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said.
"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair dying to wear them."
Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line beside a newly-starched petticoat.
Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, giggling cries.
She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the ball was in the air.