As we were dining at seven, we heard a faint voice in the little room beyond. Salemina left her dinner and went in to find her charge slightly better. We had been able thus far only to take off her dress, shoes, and such garments as made her uncomfortable;
Salemina now managed to slip on a nightdress and put her under the bedcovers, returning then to her cold mutton cutlet.
"She's an extraordinary person," she said, absently playing with her knife and fork. "She didn't ask me where she was, or show any interest in her surroundings; perhaps she is still too weak. She said she was better, and when I had made her ready for bed, she whispered, 'I've got to say my prayers'.
"'Say them by all means,' I replied.
"'But I must get up and kneel down, she said.
"I told her she must do nothing of the sort; that she was far too ill.
"'But I must,' she urged. 'I never go to bed without saying my prayers on my knees.'
"I forbade her doing it; she closed her eyes, and I came away.
Isn't she quaint?"
At this juncture we heard the thud of a soft falling body, and rushing in we found that the Derelict had crept from her bed to her knees, and had probably not prayed more than two minutes before she fainted for the fifth or sixth time in twenty-four hours. Salemina was vexed, angel and philanthropist though she is. Francesca and I were so helpless with laughter that we could hardly lift the too conscientious maiden into bed. The situation may have been pathetic; to the truly pious mind it would indeed have been indescribably touching, but for the moment the humorous side of it was too much for our self-control. Salemina, in rushing for stimulants and smelling salts, broke her only comfortable eyeglasses, and this accident, coupled with her other anxieties and responsibilities, caused her to shed tears, an occurrence so unprecedented that Francesca and I kissed and comforted her and tucked her up on the sofa. Then we sent for the doctor, gave our opera tickets to the head waiter and chambermaid, and settled down to a cheerful home evening, our first in Ireland.
"If Himself were here, we should not be in this plight," I sighed.
"I don't know how you can say that," responded Salemina, with considerable spirit. "You know perfectly well that if your husband had found a mother and seven children helpless and deserted on that dock, he would have brought them all to this hotel, and then tried to find the father and grandfather."
"And it's not Salemina's fault," argued Francesca. "She couldn't help the girl being born in Salem; not that I believe that she ever heard of the place before she saw it printed on Salemina's trunk. I told you it was too big and red, dear, but you wouldn't listen! I am the strongest American of the party, but I confess that U.S.A. in letters five inches long is too much for my patriotism."
"It would not be if you ever had charge of the luggage," retorted Salemina.
"And whatever you do, Francesca," I added beseechingly, "don't impugn the veracity of our Derelict. While we think of ourselves as ministering angels I can endure anything, but if we are the dupes of an adventuress, there is nothing pretty about it. By the way, I have consulted the English manageress of this hotel, who was not particularly sympathetic. 'Perhaps you shouldn't have assumed charge of her, madam,' she said, 'but having done so, hadn't you better see if you can get her into a hospital?' It isn't a bad suggestion, and after a day or two we will consider it, or I will get a trained nurse to take full charge of her. I would be at any reasonable expense rather than have our pleasure interfered with any further."
It still seems odd to make a proposition of this kind. In former times, Francesca was the Croesus of the party, Salemina came second, and I last, with a most precarious income. Now I am the wealthy one, Francesca is reduced to the second place, and Salemina to the third, but it makes no difference whatever, either in our relations, our arrangements, or, for that matter, in our expenditures.