wed to enter that chapel; on account of Salome, I suppose. I saw
this girl kneeling on the step and crossed over to see what she was
doing. It was Rosa, saying her prayers. There is a difference between a
Catholic and a Protestant praying. You may have noticed it. A Protestant
shuts his eyes and thinks hard about the money he's making or the
automobile he's going to buy. A Catholic plays about with his beads and
chatters all the time while he's thinking of religion. Protestants are
scandalized when they see how Catholics make a sort of rough-house
playground of their churches--children playing on the floor during
service even. They can't understand how Catholics manage to reverence a
thing and yet not hate it. Englishmen always draw wrong conclusions
about an Italian's relations with God. You see, most Englishmen feel
about God as they used to feel about Queen Victoria. They respected her
and felt she was necessary, but all the same they felt exasperated with
her for being so particular at times! Humph!

"Well, Rosa looked up and recognized me, smiled and went on praying as
fast as she could. I bowed. Of course I had my hat in my hand, so I had
to bow. I saw her go red, and I thought I'd done something she
disapproved of. I stood there hardly knowing what to do, and she bent
her head to finish her prayer. She told me afterwards that it was the
first time anyone had ever bowed to her. She turned red because she
thought I was mocking her, and then, I suppose, with pleasure. That was
the beginning of our courtship.

"Of course, in one sense, it was an unusual courtship. It happened to
come about by a number of accidents. If I hadn't hit old Croasan she
would never have looked at me, for I'm not a very conspicuous figure at
any time. If I hadn't met her in the church just as she was praying for
my soul, because I'd acted kindly towards her, I might never have seen
her again. And so on, if--if--if. It was in that sense unusual. But in
another sense I don't suppose there was ever a more commonplace affair
than this of Rosa and me. If we'd lived in Brixton we couldn't have been
more respectable!

"For some mysterious reason or other Rebecca took a fancy to me. Mind,
I was only third engineer of the oldest tramp in Genoa. If I'd been
Chief, then I could have understood her making a fuss of me. But I was
Third. I have an idea Rebecca had seen better days. Now and again she
dropped hints that pointed that way. She had a manner