Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/104

82 She is looking for me now. She is on that train up yonder. It has been a pretty hard day for me, and I thought it would be for you."

She tried to make amends:

"Why, of course, it is a dreadful disappointment for you, and for me, and for all your friends, Jack. But aren't you glad it gave you the chance to be here? I certainly am. And I'm trying to make the best of it, and so must you. You are the same old Jack, you know, in the crew or out."

The first smile in days broke over his face. If he was the same old Jack to her, the rest of the world could go hang. He was about to tell her what he ached to reveal in a rush of pent-up desire, what the Crew stood for, and how much of his life was bound up in it. She caught the kindling light in his face, and before he spoke, she thought this light was all for her. That his interest should be absorbed in the crew, rather than in Miss Cynthia Wells, piqued her, even now, as he began:

"I was afraid the crash was coming for some time. Nobody can know how I