She murmured a response in a steadier voice and he turned toward her. Had any of his society friends been by they would hardly have known him. The foolish manner behind which he sheltered his shy and sensitive nature was gone. He was grave and looked very much of a man.
“Well, of course, it’s for you to say what you want. But there’s one thing I’d like you to promise.”
“To promise?” she said uneasily.
“Yes, and to keep it, too. And that is, if you ever want anything—help in any way; if you get blue in your spirits, or some one’s not doing the straight thing by you, or gone back on you—to come to me. I’m not much in some ways, but I guess I could be of use. And, anyway, it’s good for a girl to have some friend that she can count on, who’s a man. And”—he paused with the door-handle in his hand—“and now you know me, anyway, and that’s something. Will you promise?”
“Yes, I’ll promise that,” said Mariposa, and moving toward him she gave him her hand.
He pressed it, dropped it, and opened the door. A moment later Mariposa heard the hall door bang behind him. She sat down in the chair from which she had risen, her hands lying idle in her lap, her eyes on a rose in the carpet, trying to think, to understand what it meant.
She did not hear the door open or notice Benito’s entrance, which was accomplished with some disturbance, as he was astride a cane. His spirited course round the room, the end of the cane coming in violent contact with the pieces of furniture that impeded his route, was of so boisterous a nature that it roused her. She looked absently at him, and saw him wreathed in smiles. Having gained her attention, he brought his steed toward her with some ornamental prancings. She noticed that he held a pair of gloves in his hands.
“That man what came to see you,” he said, “left this cane. It was in the hat-rack, and I came out first, so I swiped it. I took these for Miguel”—he flourished the gloves—“but the cane’s mine all right. Come in to supper.”
And he wheeled away with a bridling step, the end of his cane rasping on the worn ribs of the carpet. Mariposa, mechanically following him, heard his triumphant cries as he entered the dining-room and then his sudden wails of wrath as Miguel expressed his disapprobation of the division of the spoils in the vigorous manner of innocent childhood.