"I'll teach you to run away as soon as my back is turned. You should have been in bed an hour ago."
"I tan't unbutton myself."
"A likely reason. Move along, now."
Having been remiss in her duty, Miss Lupton was salving her conscience by being extra severe now. She hurried her charge away.
Suddenly Moya stopped. "Pleathe, my han'erchif."
"Have you lost it? Where is it?"
"I had it in the chair."
"Then run back and get it."
Moya's thin white legs flashed along the deck. Like a small hurricane she descended upon the boy. Her arms went around his neck and for an instant he was smothered in her embrace, dark ringlets flying about his fair head.
"Dood-night, Jack."
A kiss fell helter-skelter on his cheek and she was gone, tugging a little handkerchief from her pocket as she ran.
The boy did not see her again. Before she was up he and his father left the boat at Quebec. Jack wondered whether she had been smacked, after all. Once or twice during the day he thought of her, but the excitement of new sights effaced from his mind the first romance his life had known.
But for nearly a week Moya added a codicil silently to her prayer. "And, God, pleathe bless Jack."