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For a half-moment there was quivering silence; then Van Landing spoke again. "There are some things I must attend to to-night. Early to-morrow I will come for you, Frances, and in Dr. Pierson's church we will be married. Herrick and Miss Davis are coming at one o'clock, and my wife must be there to receive them. And you, too, Carmencita you and your father.
Hate is an awful ruiner." For some moments longer Carmencita sat in huddled silence, then presently she spoke again. "I didn't intend to give Miss Cattie Burns anything. I've tried to like Miss Cattie and I can't. But it was very good in her to send us a quarter of a cord of wood for a Christmas present. She can't help being practical. I'll take her that red geranium to-morrow.
Carmencita heard her out, but not as a judge. Very early in the story her doubts fled and she succumbed to the mothering instinct in her. She took the American girl in her arms and laughed and cried with her; for her imagination seized on the romance of the story and delighted in its fresh unconventionality.
An old red rep portiere wound tightly around her body to below the armpits, and held there by skillfully adjusted bands of black velvet, a fillet of the same so low that it touched her eyebrows secured about her boxed and brilliantly blond hair, she held the half-profile pose of a Carmencita, a pair of ten-cent-store black earrings dangling and her upflung gesture one of defiance, mischief with an unmistakable dash of irrepressible dramatics.
The provision of good fresh vegetables and fresh, springlike air would almost certainly be up to her department. The other two labs, Dr. Carmencita Schorlemmer in chemistry, and Dr. Chi Tung in physics, were both working on the air-restoration problem by different means electro-chemistry in the one case; gas dialysis membranes in the other.
With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine. "You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry. I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!"
I'll have half an hour before it's time to go for Father. If Miss Frances is home I can talk a lot in half an hour." Carmencita knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again. After the third knock she opened the door and, hand on the knob, looked in. "Oh, Miss Frances, I was afraid you had gone out! I knocked and knocked, but you didn't say come in, so I thought I'd look. Please excuse me!"
Tell me" Carmencita leaned forward and, arms again crossed on Van Landing's knees, looked anxiously in his face "what does a man say when he's really and truly courting? I mean a nice man. When the Real one comes, the Right one what will he say? I'm just about there, and I don't know how to go on." "I wish I could tell you."
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.
Going to the couch, he took up his hat and coat, then came back and held out his hand. "Give him this" he nodded at Noodles, "and tell your father good night. And thank you, Carmencita, thank you for letting me come. To-morrow " The room was getting black. "I will see you to-morrow."
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