“I’m not going with you.  You are going with me.”  Carmencita made effort to look tall.  “That’s what I came to tell you.  And you can ask her there.  I won’t listen.  I won’t even look, and—­”

Van Landing took up his overcoat, hesitated, and then put it on.  “I’ve never had a sure-enough Christmas, Carmencita.  Why can’t I get those things for the kiddies you spoke of, and save Miss Barbour the trouble?  She has so much to do, it isn’t fair to put more on her.  Then, too—­”

“You can have her by yourself after we eat, can’t you?  Where can you go?”

“I haven’t thought yet.  Where do you suppose?  She ought to rest.”

“Rest!” Carmencita’s voice was shrilly scornful.  “Rest—­on Christmas eve.  Besides, there isn’t a spot to do it in.  Every one has bundles in it.”  Hands clasped, her forehead puckered in fine folds, then she looked up.  “Is—­is it a nice house you live in?  It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“It is considered so.  Why?”

“Because what’s the use of waiting until to-morrow to get married?  If she’ll have you you all could stop in that little church near the Green Tea-pot and the man could marry you, and then she could go on up to your house and rest while you finished your Christmas things, and then you could go for her and bring her down here to help fix the Christmas tree, and to-morrow you could have Christmas at home.  Wouldn’t it be grand?” Carmencita was on tiptoe, and again her arms were flung in the air.  Poised as if for flight, her eyes were on the ceiling.  Her voice changed.  “The roof of this house leaks.  It ought to be fixed.”

Van Landing opened the door.  “Your plan is an excellent one, Carmencita.  I like it immensely, but there’s a chance that Miss Barbour may not agree.  Women have ways of their own in matters of marriage.  I do not even know that she will marry me at all.”

“Then she’s got mighty little sense, which isn’t so, for she’s got a lot.  She knows what she wants, all right, and if she likes you she likes you, and if she don’t, she don’t, and she don’t make out she does.  Did—­did you fuss?”

“We didn’t fuss.”  Van Landing smiled slightly.  “We didn’t agree about certain things.”

“Good gracious!  You don’t want to marry an agree-er, do you?  Mrs. Barlow’s one.  Everything her husband thinks, she thinks, too, and sometimes he can’t stand her another minute.  Where are you going now?”

“I’m going to telephone for a taxi-cab.  Then I’m going home to change my clothes and get a hat, and then I’m going to my office to look after some matters there; then I’m going with you to do some shopping, and then I’m going to the Green Tea-pot to meet Miss Barbour.  If you could go with me now it would save time.  Can you go?”

“If I can tell Father first.  Wait for me, will you?”

Around the corner Carmencita flew, and was back as the taxi-cab stopped at Mother McNeil’s door.  Getting in, she sat upright and shut her eyes.  Van Landing was saying good-by and expressing proper appreciation and mentally making notes of other forms of expression to be made later; and as she waited her breath came in long, delicious gasps through her half-parted lips.  Presently she stooped over and pinched her legs.