How It Happened Part 7

And why had she, Frances Barbour, told her as obediently as if their positions were reversed and she the child instead of Carmencita?

Elbow on the table and chin in the palm of her hand, she tapped the desk-pad with her pen and made small dots in the large circles she had drawn on the paper, and slowly she wrote a name upon it.

What could Stephen Van Landing be doing in this part of the town? He was one of the city's successful men, but he did not know his city.

Disagreeable sights and sounds had by him been hitherto avoided, and in this section they were chiefly what was found. Why should he have come to it? That he was selfish and absorbed in his own affairs, that he was conventional and tradition--trained, was as true to-day, perhaps, as when she had told him so three years ago, but had they taught him nothing, these three years that were past? Did he still think, still believe--

With a restless movement she turned in her chair, and her hands twisted in her lap. Was she not still as stubborn as of old, still as proud and impatient of restraint where her sense of freedom and independence of action were in question, still as self-willed? And was it true, what Carmencita had said--was she giving herself to others and refusing herself to the only one who had the right to claim her, the royal right of love?

But how did she know he still needed her, wanted her? When she had returned to her own city after long absence she had told of her present place of residence to but few of her old friends. Her own sorrow, her own sudden facing of the inevitable and unescapable, had brought her sharply to a realization of how little she was doing with the time that was hers, and she had been honest and sincere when she had come to Mother McNeil's and asked to be shown the side of life she had hitherto known but little--the sordid, sinful, struggling side in which children especially had so small a chance. In these years of absence he had made no sign. Even if it were true, what Carmencita had said, that he--that is, a man named Van Something--was looking for her, until he found her she could not tell him where she was.

She had not wished her friends to know. Settlements and society were as oil and water, and for the present the work she had undertaken needed all her time and thought. If only people knew, if only people understood, the things that she now knew and had come to understand, the inequalities and injustices of life would no longer sting and darken and embitter as they stung and darkened and embittered now, and if she and Stephen could work together--

He was living in the same place, his offices were in the same place, and he worked relentlessly, she was told. Although he did not know she was in the city, she knew much of him, knew of his practical withdrawal from the old life, knew of a certain cynicism that was becoming settled; and a thousand times she had blamed herself for the unhappiness that was his as well as hers. She loved her work, would always be glad that she had lived among the people who were so singularly like those other people who thought themselves so different, but if he still needed her, wanted her, was it not her duty--

With an impatient movement of her hands she got up and went over to the window. There was no duty about it. It was love that called him to her. She should not have let Carmencita go without finding from her how it happened that she had met Stephen Van Landing on Custer Street.

She must go to Carmencita and ask her. If he were really looking for her they might spend Christmas together. The blood surged hotly to her face, and the beating of her heart made her hands unsteady. If together--

A noise behind made her turn. Hand on the door-k.n.o.b, Carmencita was standing in the hall, her head inside the room. All glow was gone, and hope and excitement had yielded to dejection and despair.

"I just came to beg your pardon for--for stamping my foot, and I'm sorry I said what I did." The big blue eyes looked down on the floor and one foot twisted around the other. "It isn't any use to forgive me. I'm not worth forgiving. I'm not worth--"

The door was slammed violently, and before Miss Barbour could reach the hall Carmencita was down the steps and out into the street, where the Damanarkist was waiting.

CHAPTER XI

Late into the night Stephen Van Landing kept up his hurried walking.

Again and again he had stopped and made inquiries of policemen, of children, of men and women, but no one knew that of which he asked. A blind man who played the harp, a child named Carmencita, a boy called Noodles, a settlement house, he supposed, over which Mother Somebody presided--these were all he had to go on. To ask concerning Miss Barbour was impossible. He could not bring himself to call her name.

He would have to go to headquarters for help. To-morrow would be Christmas eve. He _would not_ spend Christmas alone--or in the usual way.

"Say, mister, don't you wish you was a boy again? Get out the way!"

With a push the boy swept by him, pulling on a self-constructed sleigh a still smaller boy, and behind the two swarmed a bunch of yelling youngsters who, as they pa.s.sed, pelted him with snow. One of them stopped to tie the string of his shoe, and, looking down, Van Landing saw--Noodles.

With a swift movement he reached down to grab him, but, thinking it was a cop, the boy was up and gone with a flash and in half a moment was out of sight. As swiftly as the boy Van Landing ran down the street and turned the corner he had seen the boy turn. His heart was beating thickly, his breath came unevenly, and the snow was blinding, but there was no thought of stopping. He b.u.mped into a man coming toward him, and two hats flew in the air and on the pavement, but he went on. The hat did not matter, only Noodles mattered, and Noodles could no longer be seen. Down the street, around first one corner and then another, he kept on in fierce pursuit for some moments; then, finding breathing difficult, he paused and leaned against the step railing of a high porch, to better get his bearings. Disappointment and fury were overmastering him. It was impossible and absurd to have within one's grasp what one had been looking for all day and part of two nights, and have it slip away like that.

"Come on. No use--that--" The policeman's voice was surly. "If you'll walk quiet I won't ring up. If you don't you'll get a free ride. Come on."

"Come on?" Van Landing put his hand to his head. His hat was gone. He looked down at his feet. They were soaking wet. His overcoat was glazed with a coating of fine particles of ice, and his hands were trembling. He had eaten practically nothing since his lunch of Tuesday, had walked many miles, and slept but a few hours after a night of anxious searching, and suddenly he felt faint and sick.

"Come on?" he repeated. "Come where?"

"Where you belong." The policeman's grasp was steadying. "Hurry up. I can't wait here all night."

"Neither can I." Van Landing took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "I wish you'd get my hat." The crowd was pressing closer. He was losing time and must get away. Besides, he could not trust himself.

The man's manner was insolent, and he was afraid he would kick him.

Instead he slipped some money in his hand.

"Mistake, my friend. You'd have your trouble for nothing if you took me in. There's no charge save running. I want to find a boy who pa.s.sed me just now. Name is Noodles. Know him?"

For a moment the cop hesitated. The man's voice, dress, manner, were not the sort seen in this section, and the bill slipped in his hand had a yellow tinge--still--

"I've dropped my hat. Get it, will you?" Van Landing threw some change in the still gathering crowd, and as they scampered for it he turned to the policeman, then caught hold of the railing. A hateful faintness was coming over him again. On the edge of the crowd a girl with a middle-aged woman had stopped, and the girl was making her way toward him.

"What is it, Mr. Cronklin? Not one of our boys?" The clear voice reached him as if at his side. He steadied himself, stared, and tried to speak.

"Frances," he said, and held out his hands. "You've made me walk so far, Frances, and Christmas is--"

In the snow his feet slipped. The cop was such a fool. He had never fainted in his life.

Some one was standing near him. Who was it, and where was he? This wasn't his room. On his elbow, he looked around. Nothing was familiar. It must be a woman's room; he could see photographs and a pin-cushion on the bureau, and flowers were growing on a table near the window. The bed he was in was small and white. His was big and bra.s.s. What had happened? Slowly it came to him, and he started to get up, then fell back. The surge of blood receded, and again there was giddiness. Had he lost her? Had she, too, slipped out of his hands because of his confounded fall? It was a durned outrage that he should have fallen. Who was that man with his back to the bed?

The man turned. "All right, are you? That's good!" His pulse was felt with professional fingers, but in the doctor's voice was frank interest. "You were pretty nearly frozen, man. It's well she saw you."

"Where is she?" Van Landing sat up. "Where are my clothes? I must get up."

"I guess not." The doctor laughed, but his tone was as decisive as his act. Van Landing was pushed back on the pillow and the covering pulled up. "Do you mean Miss Barbour?"

"Yes. Where is Miss Barbour?"

The doctor wrote something on a slip of paper. "Down-stairs, waiting to hear how you are. I'll go down and tell her. I'll see you in the morning."

"Where am I? Whose house is this?"

"Your house at present." The doctor laughed again. "It's Mother McNeil's house, but all who need it use it, and you needed it, all right. You struck your head on the bottom step of the porch three doors from here. Had it been an inch nearer the temple--Pretty bad knock-out, as it was, but you'll be all right to-morrow. If you wake up in a couple of hours take another one of these"--a pill was obediently swallowed--"but you're to see no one until I see you again.

No talking."

"Sorry, but I must see Miss Barbour." In Van Landing's voice was sharp fear. "Christmas isn't over yet? I haven't missed it, have I? Are you sure she's in this house?"

"Sure. She's getting ready for to-morrow. To-morrow will be the busiest day in the year. It's Christmas eve."

Van Landing slipped down in the bed and his face went deep in the pillows. Reaction was on. A horrible fear that he was going to cry, going to do some abominably childish thing, made him stuff the covering in his mouth and press his feet hard against the foot of the bed. He would _not_ be cheated out of Christmas! He had believed he hated it, thought he wanted to be dead during it, and now if it were over and nothing done--Presently he spoke.

"Will you ask Miss Barbour if I may speak to her in the morning--before she goes out? My name is Van Landing--Stephen Van Landing. I was a friend of hers once."

"One now." The doctor's voice was dryly emphatic. "Lucky she recognized you. Rather startled her, finding an old friend so unexpectedly." Over his spectacles his kind, shrewd eyes looked down on the man in the bed. "I'll see her. Miss Barbour is an exceptional woman, but she's a woman, which means when she knows you are all right she may not have time to see you. At present she's outside your door.

That's her knock. Guess she's got the milk."

With breath held, Van Landing listened. Very low were the words spoken, then the door was closed again. His heart was calling to her.

The long and empty years in which he had hoped against hope, and yet could make no effort to find her, faded as mist fades before the light that dawns and glows; and to say no word when she was near, to hold hands still that longed to outstretch, to make no sign when he would kneel for pardon at her feet--it was not to be endured. He would not wait; the doctor must let her in!

But it was not the doctor who was at his bed. It was a short, plump woman of more than middle age, with twinkling gray eyes and firm, kind hands and a cheery voice.

"It's the milk, my son," she said, and the steaming gla.s.s was held to his lips. "When you've had it you will sleep like a baby. It's warm, are you--and the feet good and hot? Let me feel that water-bag? Bless my soul if it's even lukewarm, and your feet still shivery! It's no wonder, for they were ice itself when they brought you in."

With dexterous fingers the hot-water bag was withdrawn from the foot of the bed and Mother McNeil was out of the room. Back again, she slipped it close to his feet, tucked in the covering, patted the pillows, and, lowering the light, turned to leave the room. At the door she stopped.