"You are my dear friend, Carmencita." His voice, as his hands, was a
bit shaky. "I, too, am very glad--and grateful. Will you ask her to
come, ask her to let me see her? I cannot wait any longer."
"You'll have to." Carmencita's eyes were big and blue in sudden
seriousness. "The Little Big Sisters have their tree to-night, and
she's got a million trillion things to do to-day, and she's gone out.
She's awful glad you're better, though. I asked her, and she said she
was. And I asked her why she didn't marry you right straight away, or
to-morrow if she didn't have time to-day, and--"
"You did what, Carmencita?"
"That. I asked her that. What's the use of wasting time? I told her
you'd like a wife for a Christmas gift very much, if she was the wife.
Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you really and truly rather have her than
anything else?"
Van Landing turned and looked out of the window. The child's eyes and
earnest, eager face could not be met in the surge of hot blood which
swept over him, and his throat grew tight. All his theories and ideas
were becoming but confused upheaval in the manipulations of fate, or
what you will, that were bringing strange things to pass, and he no
longer could think clearly or feel calmly.
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