Mariposa made no answer. Her hand shaking with rage, she began to fumble in her pocket for her purse. The whole Garcia family, assembled in the hallway beneath, breathed audibly in the tense excitement of the moment, and kept moving their eyes from her to the expressman and back again. The Chinaman from the kitchen had joined them, listening with the charmed smile which the menials of that race always wear on occasions of domestic strife.
“Say,” said the man, coming a step up the stairs and assuming a suddenly threatening air, “I can’t stay fooling round here all day. I want my money, and I want it quick. D’ye hear?”
Mariposa’s hand closed on the purse. She would have now paid anything to escape from this hateful scene. At the same moment she heard a door open behind her, a quick step in the hall, and a man suddenly stood beside her at the stair-head. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he had a pen in his hand.
The expressman, who had mounted two or three steps, saw him and recoiled, looking startled.
“What’s the matter with you?” said the new-comer shortly.
“I want my money,” said the man doggedly, but retreating.
“Who owes you money? And what do you mean by making a row like this in this house?”
“I owe him money,” said Mariposa. “I agreed to pay him a dollar for carrying my things here, and now he wants two and a half and won’t give me my things unless I pay it. But I’ll pay what he wants rather than fight this way.”
She was conscious of a slight, amused smile in the very keen and clear gray eyes the man beside her fastened for one listening moment on her face.
“Get your dollar,” he said, “and don’t bother any more.” Then in a loud voice down the stairway: “Here, step out and get the trunks and don’t let’s have any more talk about it. Ching,” to the Chinaman, “go out and help that man with this lady’s things.”