Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/108

86 Cynthia was clapping her hands, then she tore the violets from her gown and flung them as far as she could toward the distant crew.

"Yale! Yale!" she cried. "Cast off. I want to work the launch down that way to see them. Wasn't it glorious? Oh, I never saw anything half so fine. I want to shake their hands, every one of that beautiful, blessed crew. I'd give ten years of my life to be one of those men at this moment."

She had not looked at Jack, but he was determined to obtrude himself somehow.

"How about the man who worked just as hard, and gets none of this hero worship? Doesn't he deserve anything from you?"

"Poor old Jack!" she said tenderly. "Why, I forgot all about you for a little while. It is a shame you are not there. You ought to have tried just a little bit harder, hadn't you? Now you can't be a hero, but don't you care. We are all sorry as sorry as can be."

The launch had daringly poked a passage close to the float on to which the crew