Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/298

272 where you were. And—hem—she wasn't looking at me at all, and she wasn't even talking to me when she said as if she were thinking out loud:

"I'm so lonely. Oh, if I could see him just once!"

Brainard leaned over the railing and stared into the troubled sea as he almost whispered:

"Is she going to get a—get a"

"Yes, after waiting two years. Then she'll be free to"

"And you're going to the Mediterranean in the spring?" muttered Brainard. "God, if I could only see her! Two years, you say? If I could only see her!"

Brown laid an arm across his chum's big shoulder and said coaxingly:

"You don't want to meet any of these girls to-night, do you? We'll have a good old talk in my rooms later, and I'll have you booked for my cruise before we part company. There's a gilded temple of chance back here on the lagoon where the little ball rolls round and round, and I have a strong hunch that the luck is running to the black, and also dallying with