The expressman and Ching had now entered laden with the luggage. They came staggering up the stairs, scraping the walls with the corners of the trunks and softly swearing. Mariposa started for her room, followed by the strange man and the two boys.
Her deliverer was evidently a person to whom the usages of society were matters of indifference. He entered the room without permission or apology and stood looking inquiringly about him, his glance passing from the bed to the wide, old-fashioned bureau, the rocking-chair with its arm off and the ink-stain on the carpet. As the men entered with their burdens, he said:
“You look as if you’d be short of chairs here. I’ll see that you get another rocker to-morrow.”
Mariposa wondered if Mrs. Garcia was about to end her widowhood and this was the happy man.
He stood about as the men set down the luggage, and watched the transfer of the dollar from Mariposa’s white hand to the dingy one of her late enemy. The boys also eyed this transaction with speechless attention, evidently anticipating a second outbreak of hostilities. But peace had been restored and would evidently rule as long as the sunburned man in the shirt-sleeves remained.
This he appeared to intend doing. He suggested a change in the places of one or two of Mariposa’s pieces of furniture, and showed her how she could use her screen to hide the bed. He looked annoyed over a torn strip of loose wall-paper that hung dejected, revealing a long seam of plaster like a seared scar. Then he went to the window and pushed back the curtains of faded rep.
“There’s a nice view from here on sunny days down into the garden.”
Mariposa felt she must show interest, and went to the window, too. The pane was not clean, and the view commanded nothing but the splendid fountain-like foliage of the pepper-tree and below a sodden strip of garden in which limp chrysanthemums hung their heads, while a ragged nasturtium vine tried to protest its vigor by flaunting a few blossoms from the top of the fence. It seemed to her the acme of forlornness. The crescendo of the afternoon’s unutterable despondency had reached its climax. Her sense of desolation welled suddenly up into overwhelming life. It caught her by the throat. She made a supreme effort, and said in a shaken voice:
“It looks rather damp now.”
Her companion turned from the window.