, 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." C