Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/102

80 had expected she would speak some ready word of the sympathy he craved, because he stood for a tragedy in which she ought to show concern. Did she not know, could she not feel what this flight up the course meant to him, "Jack Hastings, Number Five"? But the girl at the wheel was too busy even to note the gloom in his face, as she shot the launch into a roomy berth near the three and a half mile flag, at the edge of the streak of open water. Then Cynthia turned to Hastings, held out a firm brown hand, and said with a happy smile:

"There, congratulate me. Could your coxswain, with his absurd little megaphone and all his importance, do a neater trick of steering than that? Now, you poor unfortunate boy, I am ready to hear all about your troubles. We heard yesterday, when we came ashore at New London, that you had been evicted, or had gone on strike, or something of the sort. Are you all broken up over it, and how did it happen? I am terribly disappointed, too. I came on to see you win a race. I don't care a rap for the other