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“Was it a Christmas tree?” Pussy asked, as he paused.

“Yes, but the people who trimmed it and the ones who came to see it didn’t believe in the Wise Men, or the Babe in the Manger, or the shepherds who watched their flocks by night–they just worshiped beauty and art–and other gods–but it was a corking tree–“

“You use such funny words,” Pussy crowed ecstatically. “Who ever heard of a corking tree?”

He smiled at her indulgently. He was warmer now, and as he leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned his coat he seemed to melt suddenly into something that was quite gentlemanly in pose and outline. “Well, it really was a corking tree, Pussy.”

“What’s a Buddha?” Milly asked, making a young Madonna of herself as she bent over the baby.

“A gentle god that half of the world worships,” Ostrander said, “but the people who put him on the tree didn’t worship anything–they put him there because he was of gold and ivory and was a lovely thing to look at–“

“Oh,” said Pussy, with her mouth round to say it, “oh, how funny you talk, Mr. Tony!” She laughed, with her small hands beating her knees.

She was presently, however, very serious, as she set the table. There was little formality of service. Just three plates and some bread.

Milly, having carried the baby into the other room, was hesitatingly hospitable. “Won’t you have supper with us, Mr. Tony?”

He wanted it. There was a savory smell as Milly lifted the pot from the stove. But he knew there would be only three potatoes–one for Pussy and one for Milly and one for the mother who was almost due, and there would be plenty of gravy. How queer it seemed that his mind should dwell on gravy!

“Onions are so high,” Milly had said, as she stirred it. “I had to put in just a very little piece.”

He declined hastily and got away.

In the hall he met their mother coming in. She was a busy little mother, and she did not approve of Ostrander. She did not approve of any human being who would not work.

“A merry Christmas,” he said to her, standing somewhat wistfully above her on the stairs.

She smiled at that. “Oh, Mr. Tony, Mr. Tony, they want a man in the shop. It would be a good way to begin the New Year.”

“Dear lady, I have never worked in a shop–and they wouldn’t want me after the first minute–“

Her puzzled eyes studied him. “Why wouldn’t they want you?”

“I am not–dependable–“

“How old are you?” she asked abruptly.

“Twice your age–“

“Nonsense–“

“Not in years, perhaps–but I have lived–oh, how I have lived–!”

He straightened his shoulders and ran his fingers through his hair. She had a sudden vision of what he might be if shorn of his poverty. There was something debonair–finished–an almost youthful grace–a hint of manner–

She sighed. “Oh, the waste of it!”

“Of what?”

She flamed. “Of you!”

Then she went in and shut the door.

He stood uncertainly in the hall. Then once again he faced the cold.

Around the corner was a shop where he would buy the red candle. The ten cents which he would pay was to have gone for his breakfast. He had sacrificed his supper that he might not go hungry on Christmas morning. He had planned a brace of rolls and a bottle of milk. It had seemed to him that he could face a lean night with the promise of these.

There were no red candles in the shop. There were white ones, but a red candle was a red candle–with a special look of Christmas cheer. He would have no other.

The turn of a second corner brought him to the great square. Usually he avoided it. The blaze of gold on the west side was the club.

A row of motors lined the curb. There was Baxter’s limousine and Fenton’s French car. He knew them all. He remembered when his own French car had overshadowed Fenton’s Ford.