"You are a gentleman!" Two hands with their long slender fingers were outstretched, and swiftly they stroked Van Landing's arms and body and face. "Your voice, your hands, tell me your class, and your clothes that you have money. Why--oh, why do you want to go with us?" Quickly his right hand drew his child toward him, and in terror he pressed her to his side. "She is my all, my light, my life! Away from her I am in darkness you could not understand. No, you must not go with us. You must go away and leave us!" For a moment Van Landing hesitated, puzzled by the sudden fear in the man's face, then over his own crept grayness, and the muscles in it stiffened. "My God!" he said, and his mouth grew dry. "Have men brought men to this?" For another half-moment there was silence which the child, looking from one to the other, could not understand, and her hands, pressed close to her breast, gripped tightly her cold fingers. Presently Van Landing turned. "Very well," he said. "I will go. It was just that I know little of a real Christmas. Good night." "Oh, don't go--don't go, Mr. Van! It's going to be Christmas two days after to-morrow, Father, and the Christ-child wouldn't like it if you let him go!" Carmencita held the sleeve of Van Landing's coat with a sturdy clutch. "He isn't a damanarkist. I can tell by his eyes. They are so lonely-looking. You aren't telling a story, are you Mr. Van? Is it truly truth that you haven't anybody?" "It is truly truth," he said. "I mean anybody to make Christmas for." "No mother or father or a little girl like me? Haven't you even got a wife?" "Not even a wife." Van Landing smiled. "You are as bad as Miss Barbour. She hasn't anybody, either, now, she says, 'most everybody being--" "Miss who?" Van Landing turned so sharply that the child jumped. "Who did you say?" "Miss Barbour." The eyes which were so like those he could not forget were raised to his. "If you knew Miss Barbour she could tell you of plenty of people to make Christmas for. She's living right now with Mother McNeil, who isn't really anybody's mother, but just everybody's. But she don't live there all the time. Most of her people are dead or married and don't need her, so she came to Mother McNeil to see how children down there live. What's the matter, Mr. Van?" To hide the upleaping flame in his face and the sudden trembling of his hands Van Landing stooped down and picked up the handkerchief he had dropped; then he stepped back and out of the circle of light in which he had been standing. For a moment he did not speak lest his voice be as unsteady as his hands, but, taking out his watch, he looked at it, then put it back with fumbling fingers. "Her first name--Miss Barbour's first name," he said, and the dryness of his throat made his words a little indistinct. "What is it?"