With a change of expression Carmencita sprang to her feet and, hands clasped behind her back, she stood erect, her eyes blazing with indignation.  “If you don’t tell him where you are, don’t let him come, I’ll think it’s all just make-believe and put on, your coming and doing for people you don’t really and truly know, and doing nothing for those you do, and letting the ones you love best be lonely and miserable and having Christmas all by themselves when they’re starving hungry for you.  What is his name?” 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.  With hands that trembled she turned the pages of the book she was holding upside down, then with disgust at her stupidity she righted it and ran her finger down the long line of V’s.  Finding at last the name she wanted, she called the number, then closed her eyes and prayed fervently, feverishly, and half-aloud the words came jerkily: 

“O God, please let him be home, and let him get down here quick before Miss Frances goes out.  She and Mother McNeil are going somewhere and won’t be back until eleven, and that would be too late for him to come, and—­Hello!” The receiver was jammed closer to her ear.  “Is that Mr. Van Landing’s house?  Is he home?  He—­he—­isn’t home!” The words came in a little wail.  “Oh, he must be home!  Are you sure—­sure?  Where can I get him?  Where is he?  You don’t know—­hasn’t been at the office all day and hasn’t telephoned?  He’s looking—­I mean I guess he’s, trying to find somebody.  Who is this talking?  It’s—­it’s a friend of his, and tell him the minute he comes in to call up Pelham 4293 and ask for Miss Frances Barbour, who wants to talk to him.  And listen.  Tell him if she’s out to come to 14 Custer Street, to Mother McNeil’s, and wait until she gets home.  Write it down.  Got it?  Yes, that’s it.  Welcome.  Good-by.”

The receiver was hung upon its hook, and for a moment Carmencita stared at the wall; then her face sobered.  The strain and tension of the day gave way, and the high hopes of the night before went out as at the snuffing of a candle.  Presently she nodded into space.

“I stamped my foot at Miss Frances. Stamped my foot!  And I got mad, and was impertinent, and talked like a gutter girl to a sure-enough lady.  Talked like—­”

Her teeth came down on her lips to stop their sudden quivering, and the picture on the wall grew blurred and indistinct.

“There isn’t any use in praying.”  Two big tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon her hands.  “I might as well give up.”

CHAPTER X

For a half-moment after Carmencita left the room Frances Barbour stood in the middle of the floor and stared at the door, still open, then went over and closed it.  Coming back to the table at which she had been writing, she sat down and took up her pen and made large circles on the sheet of paper before her.  Slowly the color in her face cooled and left it white.