When the gong sounds for service on the morning of the second Sunday out, the Baron grumbles feelingly at the interruption. He is sketching Mrs. Steele and me and says he "hates playing on a zo bad violin"--but a promise is a promise, and we all go down "to church" in the close dining-room. The Captain reads the beautiful Morning Prayers and Litanies like a schoolboy, but the music is really admirable. Pretty Miss Rogers appears to striking advantage. Dressed simply in white, she plays the accompaniments and leads the singing in a sweet, true voice. Mrs. Steele and I sit in the background, and I'm afraid I think but little of the service. Now what perversity is in the mind of man, I meditate, that blinds him to such real beauty and accomplishment as Miss Rogers is blessed with? Of course, I'm not such a fool as not to see that with all my sadly palpable defects of face and temper, the big Peruvian finds me somehow interesting and "Miss Rogair a nice girl, but, like a dthousand odthers I haf know, a leedle stupeed." Ah, the "stupidity" is on the other side, I'm afraid! Miss Rogers is too inexperienced, my thoughts run on, to disguise her liking for the Baron, and instead of being pleased or flattered as he should be, he will leave her at a look from me, only to get laughed at for his pains. A strange world! I say to myself. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be!" sings the choir, and Miss Rogers' clear voice lingers in the "Amen." As I walk the deck with the Baron that evening he tells me about his lovely sister, "Alvida," and about Peruvian customs. "My sister ees dthe most beautiful voman in Peru; she haf many suitors, but she ees nefer allow to see dthem except when dthe family air vidth her. It ees not like your country; a man can nefer know dthe voman he loaf till he marry her." "Very stupid custom," I say. "I wouldn't give a fig for such love. You could only care for the face or the fortune of a woman so hemmed about. What could you know of the character, of the real individual, that after all is the only safe thing to pin one's faith to." "I like your customs better in zome dthings, but it makes you vomans too clevair; you know men better dthan ve know you." "You have the same opportunities. It's not our fault if you don't profit by them." "You tell me yourself," he goes on, unheeding, "you haf many gude friends among your fadther's and brodthers' acquaintances; dthat make you care so leedle for men." "Not a bit of it!" I laugh. "On the contrary, it has so accustomed me to their friendship I would find life utterly unendurable without it." "I vill make you fery angry pairhaps, but I have deescovair you like _me_ leedle more dthan a friend." "I suppose it is often flattering to a man's vanity to have a fancy like that," I say coolly, but I am conscious of a twinge; what if I do like him more than I want to think? "It ees not fancy, Senorita; you do not know yourself you care, but you do."