“Why do you say no?” he demanded. “Because I want to say no.” “But--but--why? Are you still angry?” “I want to say no,” she repeated. “I couldn’t say anything else.” “But you love me?” with angry persistence. “No, I don’t love you.” “You do,” he said in a low voice. “You’re not telling the truth. You do love me. You know you do.” She looked at him with cold defiance, and said steadily: “I do not.” He drew nearer her along the bench and said with his eyes hard upon her: “I didn’t think you were the kind of woman to kiss a man you didn’t care for.” He knew when he spoke the words they were foolish and jeopardized his cause, but his fury at her disdainful attitude forced them from him. She turned pale and her nostrils quivered. He had given her a body blow. For a moment they sat side by side looking at each other like two enraged animals animated by equally violent if different passions. “Thank you for saying that,” she said, when she could command her voice; “now I understand what your love for me means.” She rose from the bench. He seized her hand and attempted to draw her back, saying: “Mariposa, listen to me. You drive me distracted. You force me to say things like that to you, when you know that I’m mad with love for you. Listen--” She tore her hand out of his grasp and ran across the space to the slope, calling wildly to Benito. The boy at last could feign deafness no longer and sat up on his heels in well-simulated surprise. “Come, come,” she cried angrily. “Come at once. I want you.” He rose, dusting his nether parts and shouting: “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. “My hand often does that way,” she said with an air of embarrassment.