“Why? why? we’re havin’ an awful nice time up here.”
“Come,” she reiterated; “it’s late and we must go.”
He trotted down the slope, extremely reluctant, and inclined to be rebellious.
Mariposa caught him by the hand and swept him back toward the path between the spruces. Essex was still standing near the bench, an elegant figure with a darkly sinister face. As they passed him he raised his hat. Mariposa, whose face was bent down, did not return the salute; so Benito did, as he was hauled by. She continued to drag the unwilling little boy along, while he hung loosely from her hand, staring backward for a last look at his playmate.
“What’s your name?” he roared as he was dragged toward the shadowy path that plunged into the trees. “I forget what your name is.”
The answer was lost in the intervening space, and the next moment he and Mariposa disappeared behind the screen of thick-growing evergreens.
“Say,” said Benito, “leggo my hand. What’s the sense ’er hauling me this way?”
Mariposa did not heed, and they went on at a feverish pace.
“What makes your hand shake that way?” was his next observation. “It’s like grandma’s when she came home from Los Angeles with the chills.”
There was something in this harmless comment that caused Mariposa suddenly to loosen her hold.