Aunt Alice had been, as her custom was, vague, when Anna-Rose, having given her the desired promise not to talk or let Anna-Felicitas talk to strange men, and desiring to collect any available information for her guidance in her new responsible position had asked, “But when are men not strange?”

“When you’ve married them,” said Aunt Alice.  “After that, of course, you love them.”

And she sighed heavily, for it was bed-time.

CHAPTER VI

Nothing more was seen of the submarine.

The German ladies were certain the captain had somehow let them know he had them on board, and were as full of the credit of having saved the ship as if it had been Sodom and Gomorrah instead of a ship, and they the one just man whose presence would have saved those cities if he had been in them; and the American passengers were equally sure that the submarine, on thinking it over, had decided that President Wilson was not a man to be trifled with, and had gone in search of some prey which would not have the might and majesty of America at its back.

As the day went on, and the St. Luke left off zig-zagging, the relief of those on board was the relief of a reprieve from death.  Almost everybody was cured of sea-sickness, and quite everybody was ready to overwhelm his neighbour with cordiality and benevolence.  Rich people didn’t mind poor people, and came along from the first class and talked to them just as if they had been the same flesh and blood as themselves.  A billionairess native to Chicago, who had crossed the Atlantic forty times without speaking to a soul, an achievement she was as justly proud of as an artist is of his best creations, actually asked somebody in a dingy mackintosh, whose little boy still looked pale, if he had been frightened; and an exclusive young man from Boston talked quite a long while to an English lady without first having made sure that she was well-connected.  What could have been more like heaven?  The tone on the St. Luke that day was very like what the tone in the kingdom of heaven must be in its simple politeness.  “And so you see,” said Anna-Rose, who was fond of philosophizing in season and out of season, and particularly out of season, “how good comes out of evil.”

She made this observation about four o’clock in the afternoon to Anna-Felicitas in an interval of absence on the part of Mr. Twist—­such, the amiable stranger had told them, was his name—­who had gone to see about tea being brought up to them; and Anna-Felicitas, able by now to sit up and take notice, the hours of fresh air having done their work, smiled the ready, watery, foolishly happy smile of the convalescent.  It was so nice not to feel ill; it was so nice not to have to be saved.  If she had been able to talk much, she would have philosophized too, about the number and size of one’s negative blessings—­all the things one hasn’t got, all the very horrid things; why, there’s no end to them once you begin to count up, she thought, waterily happy, and yet people grumble.