Would she come?  With his lips Stephen Van Landing was pronouncing the words of the article he had again begun to read to the blind harpist, but in his heart, which was beating thickly, other words were surging, and every now and then he wiped his forehead lest its dampness be seen by the child’s keen eyes.  Would she come?  Three years had passed since senseless selfishness on his part had made her spirit flare and she had given him back his ring.  For a moment he had held it, and in the dancing flames of the logs upon the hearth in the library of her beautiful old-fashioned home its stones had gleamed brilliantly, flashed protesting fire; then he had dropped it in the blaze and turned and left the room.  Had she forgotten, or had she suffered, too?

With mechanical monotony the words continued to come from his lips, but his thoughts were afar off, and presently Carmencita took the magazine out of his hand.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but Father is asleep, and you don’t know a word you’re saying.  You might as well stop.”

Putting the magazine on the table, Carmencita drew the stool on which she was sitting closer to Van Landing’s chair, and, hands clasped around her knees, looked up into his eyes.  In hers was puzzled questioning.

“I beg your pardon.”  His face flushed under the grave scrutiny bent upon him.  “I was reading abominably, but I couldn’t get my mind—­”

“I know,” Carmencita nodded understandingly.  “I do that way sometimes when I’m saying one thing and thinking another, and Father always takes a little nap until I get out of the clouds.  He says I spend a lot of my time in the clouds.  I’m bound to soar sometimes.  If I didn’t make out I wasn’t really and truly living here, on the top floor, with the Rheinhimers underneath, but just waiting for our house to be fixed up, I couldn’t stand it all the time.  I’d go—­”

She hesitated, then again went on.  “You see, it’s this way.  There ’re a lot of things I hate, but I’ve got to stand them, and the only way I can do it is to get away from them in my mind sometimes.  Father says it’s the way we stand things that proves the kind of person we are; but Father is Father, and I am me, and letting out is a great relief.  Did you ever feel as if you’re bound to say things sometimes?”

“I’m afraid I’ve not only felt I had to say them, but I said them.”  Van Landing looked at his watch.  “Your Father is doubtless right, but—­”

“Noodles hasn’t had time to get back yet, and she might not be there.”  Carmencita glanced toward the clock.  “And Father is always right.  He’s had to sit so many hours alone and think and think and think, that he’s had time to ask God about a good many things we don’t take time to ask about.  I pray a lot, but my kind of prayers isn’t praying.  They’re mostly asking, and Father says prayer is receiving—­is getting God in you, I mean.  I don’t understand, but he does, and he doesn’t ask for things like I do, but for patience and courage and—­and things like that.  No matter what happens, he keeps on trusting.  I don’t.  I’m not much of a truster.  I want to do things my way, myself.”  She leaned forward.  “If I tell you something will you promise not to tell anybody, not even Miss Frances when—­when it’s all right?”