The girl smiled at him. “I hope you feel better, senor!” she said.
“Much better! Seasickness is humiliating, but it isn’t lasting. I am all right, except that I am still a little shaky on my legs.” As he spoke Topham wobbled with what he hoped was artistic verisimilitude.
The girl uttered a little cry. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You must not stand. Take this chair.” She indicated the one next to hers and Topham sank into it with a sigh of content.
Two hours later when the dinner gong sounded, the girl started and looked at her watch. “Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “How the day has gone. I make you my compliments, senor! You have made the time fly.”
She rose and Topham regretfully followed suit.
“I hope you will give me another opportunity, senorita,” he pleaded.
“But yes. Most certainly! I shall be charmed.” With a smile and a nod she was gone.
The most of the voyage—or as much of it as the proprieties and the Baroness Ostersacken would permit—Topham spent by Miss Ferreira’s side. Day after day the two watched the shadows shorten, vanish, and grow long once more. Night after night they saw the moon sail across the star-dusted sky, and watched the ripples break athwart her silvery reflection in the water. Day after day, night after night they grew into each other’s thoughts—while the Baroness Ostersacken played propriety in the background.
By the end of the voyage each had learned much about the other. Topham had learned that the girl was the daughter of a German mother and a Brazilian father and that she was returning from a trip to Rio Janiero, made in charge of her cousin the Baroness, to join her brother at Berlin. She, on the other hand, learned that Topham was a navy officer, en route for Tokio, who was going via Berlin to see an old friend, and would thence go to Brindisi to join his ship. Not a word nor a suggestion from either had reference to any papers he might carry.
Long before the end of the voyage Topham had made up his mind that this was the one girl in the world for him. His earlier affection for Lillian Byrd he had absolutely forgotten or remembered only to wonder that he should ever have mistaken it for real love. It was a very milk and water feeling contrasted with the madness that possessed him now.