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She says she wishes you'd send him to a cure or something. And I want to tell you about Father's present." For twenty minutes they talked long and earnestly. Carmencita's list of names and number of pennies were gone over again and again, and when at last she got up to go the perplexities of indecision and adjustment were mainly removed, and she sighed with satisfaction.
She stopped for breath, and Van Landing, stooping, lifted Carmencita's face and kissed it. "You are my dear friend, Carmencita." His voice, as his hands, was a bit shaky. "I, too, am very glad and grateful. Will you ask her to come, ask her to let me see her? I cannot wait any longer." "You'll have to." Carmencita's eyes were big and blue in sudden seriousness.
"A long time ago she was the only real friend I had, and I lost her. I have wanted very much to find her." "Oh, Father, if he knows Miss Barbour he's bound to be all right!" Carmencita's arms were flung above her head and down again, and on her tiptoes she danced gaily round and round. "We can show him where she lives." She stopped. "No, we can't. She told me I must never do that.
Go in the room over there quick, Mr. Van. Come in!" With inward as well as outward rigidity Van Landing waited. To the movements of Carmencita's hand waving him away he paid no attention. In thick, heavy throbs his heart sent the blood to his face, then it receded, and for a moment the room was dark and he saw nothing. To the "come in" of Carmencita the door opened, and he looked in its direction.
In the morning he would find it, but he did not want to make demands upon the usual sources for help until he had exhausted all other means of redeeming his folly in not learning Carmencita's full name and address before he left her. Was a man's whole life to be changed, to be made or unmade, by whimsical chance or by stupid blunder?
Carmencita's voice was high and shrill, and her foot was stamped vehemently. "What is his name?" "Stephen Van Landing." Face to face, Frances Barbour and Carmencita looked into each other's eyes, then with a leap Carmencita was out of the room and down the steps and at the telephone.
The flame of color that swept into the cheeks of Frances, the appeal in the shamed eyes, held Carmencita's surprised gaze. Then coolly it traveled over the girl and came back to her burning face. "So that's it, is it?" But the scorn in her voice was too much for Frances. She had been judged and condemned in that cool stare, and all the woman in her protested at its injustice.
She told me she had given you a perfectly good hat that would last a long time." "She did." Carmencita's hands were stuck in the deep pockets of her long coat, and again her big blue eyes were raised to her friend's. "It would have lasted for ever if it hadn't got burned up. It fell in the fire and got burned up." Out in the hall she hesitated, then came back, opened the door, and put her head in.
I'd rather stick my foot out with a diamond-buckle slipper on it than eat. I do when my princess friends call, and they always say: 'Oh, Carmencita, what a charming foot you have! And that's it. That!" And Carmencita's foot with it's coarse and half-worn shoe was held out at full length. "But we've got to hurry, or we won't be at the Green Tea-pot by two o'clock. Come on."
He's been waiting three years, and he can't wait another minute. Gracious! that smells good!" The savory dish that passed caused a turn in Carmencita's head, and Frances Barbour, looking into the eyes that were looking into hers, held out her hand. At sight of Van Landing her face had colored richly, then the color had left it, leaving it white, and in her eyes was that he had never seen before.
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