Chapter XIII

"A very happy Christmas!" Van Landing smiled. "How can I have it without--When can I see her, Mother McNeil?"

At the open door Mother McNeil turned. "She has some shopping to do. Yesterday two more families were turned over to us. Sometimes she gets lunch at the Green Tea-pot on Samoset Street. She will be home at four. The children come at eight, and the tree is to be dressed before they get here." A noise made her look around. "Carmencita,--you are out of breath, child! It's never you will learn to walk, I'm fearing!"

Carmencita, who had run down the hall as one pursued, stopped, pulled up her stocking, and made effort to fasten it to its supporter. "Christmas in my legs," she said. "Can't expect feet to walk on Christmas eve. I've got to tell him something, Mother McNeil. Will you excuse me, please, if I tell him by himself?"

Coming inside the room, Carmencita pulled Van Landing close to her and closed the door, and for half a minute paused for breath.

"It was Her. It was Miss Barbour at the telephone, and she says I must meet her at the Green Tea-pot at two o'clock and have lunch with her and tell her about the Barlow babies and old Miss Parker and some others who don't go to Charities for their Christmas--and she says I can help buy the things. Glory! I'm glad I'm living!" She stopped. "I didn't tell her a word about you, but--Have you got a watch?"

Van Landing looked at his watch, then put it back. "I have a watch, but no hat. I lost my hat last night chasing Noodles. It's nine o'clock. I'm going to the Green Tea-pot at two to take lunch also. Want to go with me?"

"I'm not going with you. You are going with me." Carmencita made effort to look tall. "That's what I came to tell you. And you can ask her there. I won't listen. I won't even look, and--"

Van Landing took up his overcoat, hesitated, and then put it on. "I've never had a sure-enough Christmas, Carmencita. Why can't I get those things for the kiddies you spoke of, and save Miss Barbour the trouble? She has so much to do, it isn't fair to put more on her. Then, too--"

"You can have her by yourself after we eat, can't you? Where can you go?"

"I haven't thought yet. Where do you suppose? She ought to rest."

"Rest!" Carmencita's voice was shrilly scornful. "Rest--on Christmas eve. Besides, there isn't a spot to do it in. Every one has bundles in it." Hands clasped, her forehead puckered in fine folds, then she looked up. "Is--is it a nice house you live in? It's all right, isn't it?"

"It is considered so. Why?"

"Because what's the use of waiting until to-morrow to get married? If she'll have you you all could stop in that little church near the Green Tea-pot and the man could marry you, and then she could go on up to your house and rest while you finished your Christmas things, and then you could go for her and bring her down here to help fix the Christmas tree, and to-morrow you could have Christmas at home. Wouldn't it be grand?" Carmencita was on tiptoe, and again her arms were flung in the air. Poised as if for flight, her eyes were on the ceiling. Her voice changed. "The roof of this house leaks. It ought to be fixed."

Van Landing opened the door. "Your plan is an excellent one, Carmencita. I like it immensely, but there's a chance that Miss Barbour may not agree. Women have ways of their own in matters of marriage. I do not even know that she will marry me at all."

"Then she's got mighty little sense, which isn't so, for she's got a lot. She knows what she wants, all right, and if she likes you she likes you, and if she don't, she don't, and she don't make out she does. Did--did you fuss?"

"We didn't fuss." Van Landing smiled slightly. "We didn't agree about certain things."

"Good gracious! You don't want to marry an agree-er, do you? Mrs. Barlow's one. Everything her husband thinks, she thinks, too, and sometimes he can't stand her another minute. Where are you going now?"

"I'm going to telephone for a taxi-cab. Then I'm going home to change my clothes and get a hat, and then I'm going to my office to look after some matters there; then I'm going with you to do some shopping, and then I'm going to the Green Tea-pot to meet Miss Barbour. If you could go with me now it would save time. Can you go?"

"If I can tell Father first. Wait for me, will you?"

Around the corner Carmencita flew, and was back as the taxi-cab stopped at Mother McNeil's door. Getting in, she sat upright and shut her eyes. Van Landing was saying good-by and expressing proper appreciation and mentally making notes of other forms of expression to be made later; and as she waited her breath came in long, delicious gasps through her half-parted lips. Presently she stooped over and pinched her legs.

"My legs," she said, "same ones. And my cheeks and my hair"--the latter was pulled with vigor--"and my feet and my hands--all me, and in a taxi-cab going Christmas shopping and maybe to a marriage, and I didn't know he was living last week! Father says I mustn't speak to people I don't know, but how can you know them if you don't speak? I was born lucky, and I'm so glad I'm living that if I was a rooster I'd crow. Oh, Mr. Van, are you ready?"

The next few hours to Carmencita were the coming true of dreams that had long been denied, and from one thrill to another she passed in a delicious ecstasy which made pinching of some part of her body continually necessary. While Van Landing dressed she waited in his library, wandering in wide-eyed awe and on tiptoe from one part of the room to the other, touching here and there with the tips of her fingers a book or picture or piece of furniture, and presently in front of a footstool she knelt down and closed her eyes.

Quickly, however, she opened them and, with head on the side, looked around and listened. This wasn't a time to be seen. The silence assuring, she again shut her eyes very tight and the palms of her hands, uplifted, were pressed together.

"Please, dear God, I just want to thank you," she began. "It's awful sudden and unexpected having a day like this, and I don't guess to-morrow will be much, not a turkey Christmas or anything like that, but to-day is grand. I'd say more, but some one is coming. Amen." And with a scramble she was on her feet, the stool behind her, as Van Landing came in the room.

The ride to the office through crowded streets was breathlessly thrilling, and during it Carmencita did not speak. At the window of the taxi she pressed her face so closely that the glass had continually to be wiped lest the cloud made by her breath prevent her seeing clearly; and, watching her, Van Landing smiled. What an odd, elfish, wistful little face it was--keen, alert, intelligent, it reflected every emotion that filled her, and her emotions were many. In her long, ill-fitting coat and straw hat, in the worn shoes and darned gloves, she was a study that puzzled and perplexed, and at thought of her future he frowned. What became of them--these children with little chance? Was it to try and learn and help that Frances was living in their midst?

In his office Herrick and Miss Davis were waiting. Work had been pretty well cleared up, and there was little to be done, and as Van Landing saw them the memory of his half-waking, half-dreaming thought concerning them came to him, and furtively he looked from one to the other.

In a chair near the window, hands in her lap and feet on the rounds, Carmencita waited, her eyes missing no detail of the scene about her, and at Miss Davis, who came over to talk to her, she looked with frank admiration. For a moment there was hesitating uncertainty in Van Landing's face; then he turned to Herrick.

"Come into the next room, will you, Herrick? I want to speak to you a minute."

What he was going to say he did not know. Herrick was such a steady old chap, from him radiated such uncomplaining patience, about him was such aloofness concerning his private affairs, that to speak to him on personal matters was difficult. He handed him cigars and lighted one himself.

"I'm going to close the office, Herrick, until after New-Year," he began. "I thought perhaps you might like to go away."

"I would." Herrick, whose cigar was unlighted, smiled slightly. "But I don't think I'll go."

"Why not?"

Herrick hesitated, and his face flushed. He was nearing forty, and his hair was already slightly gray. "There are several reasons," he said, quietly. "Until I am able to be married I do not care to go away. She would be alone, and Christmas alone--"

"Is--is it Miss Davis, Herrick?" Van Landing's voice was strangely shy; then he held out his hand. "You're a lucky man, Herrick. I congratulate you. Why didn't you tell me before; and if you want to get married, why not? What's the use of waiting? The trip's on me. Christmas alone--I forgot to say I've intended for some time to raise your salary. You deserve it, and it was thoughtlessness that made me put it off." He sat down at his desk and took his check-book out of a spring-locked drawer and wrote hastily upon it. "That may help to start things, Herrick, and if there's any other way--"

In Herrick's astonished face the blood pumped deep and red, and as he took the check Van Landing put in his hands his fingers twitched nervously. It was beyond belief that Van Landing should have guessed--and the check! It would mean the furnishing of the little flat they had looked at yesterday and hoped would stay unrented for a few months longer; meant a trip, and a little put aside to add to their slow savings. Now that his sister was married and his brother out of school, he could save more, but with this--He tried to speak, then turned away and walked over to the window.

"Call her in, Herrick, and let's have it settled. Why not get the license to-day and be married to-morrow? Oh, Miss Davis!" He opened the door and beckoned to his stenographer, who was showing Carmencita her typewriter. "Come in, will you? Never mind. We'll come in there."