Salter stood on deck and watched the crowd dispersing. Some of the people were laughing and some had red eyes. Groups collected on the wharf and tried to say still more last words to their friends crowding against the rail.
The Worthingtons kept their places and were still looking out, by this time disappointedly. It seemed that the friend or friends they expected were not coming. Salter saw that Miss Vanderpoel looked more disappointed than the rest. She leaned forward and strained her eyes to see. Just at the last moment there was the sound of trampling horses and rolling wheels again. From the arriving carriage descended hastily an elderly woman, who lifted out a little boy excited almost to tears. He was a dear, chubby little person in flapping sailor trousers, and he carried a splendidly-caparisoned toy donkey in his arms. Salter could not help feeling slightly excited himself as they rushed forward. He wondered if they were passengers who would be left behind.
They were not passengers, but the arrivals Miss Vanderpoel had been expecting so ardently. They had come to say good-bye to her and were too late for that, at least, as the gangway was just about to be withdrawn.
Miss Vanderpoel leaned forward with an amazingly fervid expression on her face.
“Tommy! Tommy!” she cried to the little boy. “Here I am, Tommy. We can say good-bye from here.”
The little boy, looking up, broke into a wail of despair.
“Betty! Betty! Betty!” he cried. “I wanted to kiss you, Betty.”
Betty held out her arms. She did it with entire forgetfulness of the existence of any lookers-on, and with such outreaching love on her face that it seemed as if the child must feel her touch. She made a beautiful, warm, consoling bud of her mouth.
“We'll kiss each other from here, Tommy,” she said. “See, we can. Kiss me, and I will kiss you.”
Tommy held out his arms and the magnificent donkey. “Betty,” he cried, “I brought you my donkey. I wanted to give it to you for a present, because you liked it.”
Miss Vanderpoel bent further forward and addressed the elderly woman.
“Matilda,” she said, “please pack Master Tommy's present and send it to me! I want it very much.”
Tender smiles irradiated the small face. The gangway was withdrawn, and, amid the familiar sounds of a big craft's first struggle, the ship began to move. Miss Vanderpoel still bent forward and held out her arms.
