“Not Joe?” said Cressy with a low laugh, turning her eyes to the door.
“Yes,” said Stacey with a quick, uneasy smile. “Ah! I see we mustn't drop HIM. Is he out THERE?” he added, trying to follow the direction of her eyes.
But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. “Is that all?” she asked after a pause.
“Well—there's that solemn school-master, who cut me out of the waltz with you—that Mr. Ford.”
Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes, which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room. But he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but languid play of expression and color came back, and she turned her head lazily towards the speaker. “There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before you try it on me?”
“Certainly not,” said Stacey, by no means displeased at the prospect of having so pretty and intelligent a witness in the daughter of what he believed would form an attractive display of his diplomatic skill and graciousness to the father. “Don't go away. I've got nothing to say Miss Cressy could not understand and answer.”
The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of McKinstry and his shot-gun falling at this moment between the speaker and Cressy, spared her the necessity of a reply. McKinstry cast an uneasy glance around the apartment, and not seeing Mrs. McKinstry looked relieved, and even the deep traces of the loss of a valuable steer that morning partly faded from his Indian-red complexion. He placed his shot-gun carefully in the corner, took his soft felt hat from his head, folded it and put it in one of the capacious pockets of his jacket, turned to his daughter, and laying his maimed hand familiarly on her shoulder, said gravely, without looking at Stacey, “What might the stranger be wantin', Cress?”
“Perhaps I'd better answer that myself,” said Stacey briskly. “I'm acting for Benham and Co., of San Francisco, who have bought the Spanish title to part of this property. I”—
“Stop there!” said McKinstry, in a voice dull but distinct. He took his hat from his pocket, put it on, walked to the corner and took up his gun, looked at Stacey for the first time with narcotic eyes that seemed to drowsily absorb his slight figure, then put the gun back half contemptuously, and with a wave of his hand towards the door, said: “We'll settle this yer outside. Cress, you stop in here. There's man's talk goin' on.”
“But, Paw,” said Cressy, laying her hand languidly on her father's sleeve without the least change of color or amused expression. “This gentleman has come over here on a compromise.”