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-knob, 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!”