Giving the pitcher to Van Landing, she told him to fill it and pointed to a faucet in the hall.  “I don’t think he’ll need another; one is generally enough.  I’ve seen him like this before.  His wife won’t throw water in his face, but I throw.”  She leaned farther over the railing.  “If you’ll be quiet and go back quick I won’t put any more water on you; it’s awful cold, but if you don’t—­”

Slowly, and as if dazed, the man on the steps got up, and as he disappeared Carmencita nodded to her visitor to go back to her Father, now standing by the table.  Closing the door, she came toward him and pushed him again in his chair, smoothing lightly the snow-white hair and kissing the trembling fingers, then at his feet she took her seat.

“I’m so sorry he waked you.  It was just old Beer-Barrel.  He oughtn’t to drink”—­she raised her eyes to Van Landing’s—­“but a man who’s got a wife like his is bound to do something, and sometimes I wish I could put the water on her instead of him.”

CHAPTER VIII

For a moment Van Landing walked up and down the room, hands in his pockets and heart pounding in a way of which he was ashamed.  Ordinarily the sight of a drunken man would have awakened little emotion save disgust, but the realization of the helplessness of the two people before him filled him with inward rage, and for some time he could not trust himself to speak.  A sickening horror of this hideous side of life filled him with strange protest.  Yesterday he had not known and had not cared that such things could be, and now—­

On Carmencita’s face was none of the alarm that had come into his.  Her father, too, was getting over his fright.  For this helpless old man and fair, frail child, whose wit and courage were equal to situations of which she had the right of childhood to be ignorant, the scene just witnessed had the familiarity of frequent repetition, but for him it was horribly new, and if the Damanarkist of whom Carmencita so often spoke should come in he would be glad to shake his hand.

A noise at the door made him start.  They were coming.  The boy and Frances.  He dug his hands deeper in his pockets to hide their trembling, and his face went white.

But it was not Noodles.  It was Mr. Robinsky, who had brought the harp, and, though he evidently intended to sit down and talk, with consummate skill and grace he was led into the hall by Carmencita and told good night with sweetness and decision.  It was wonderfully managed.  No man could have done it, and in his heart Van Landing thanked her; but before he could speak there was a loud pounding on the door, and both he and Carmencita started nervously toward it.

“It’s Noodles.  I know his knock.”  Carmencita’s hands clasped tightly, and in her voice was eager trembling.  “I’m so excited I can’t breathe good!  It’s like being in a book.  Go in the room over there quick, Mr. Van.  Come in!”