y ease. The greatest people, I have found, have this quality of
simplicity. When she spoke of the anxieties of her ladies, I wished
that I could have conveyed to her, from so many Americans, their
sympathy in her own anxieties, so keen at that time, so unselfishly
borne. But the lady-in-waiting was speaking:

"Please tell the Queen about your meeting with King Albert."

So I told about it. It had been unconventional, and the recital amused
Her Majesty. It was then that I realised how humorous her mouth was,
how very blue and alert her eyes. I told it all to her, the things
that insisted on slipping off my lap, and the King's picking them up;
the old envelope he gave me on which to make notes of the interview;
how I had asked him whether he would let me know when the interview
was over, or whether I ought to get up and go! And finally, when we
were standing talking before my departure, how I had suddenly
remembered that I was not to stand nearer to His Majesty than six
feet, and had hastily backed away and explained, to his great
amusement.

Queen Mary laughed. Then her face clouded.

"It is all so very tragic," she said. "Have you seen the Queen?"

I replied that the Queen of the Belgians had received me a few days
after my conversation with the King.

"She is very sad," said Her Majesty. "It is a terrible thing for her,
especially as she is a Bavarian by birth."

From that to the ever-imminent subject of the war itself was but a
step. An English officer had recently made a sensational escape from a
German prison camp, and having at last got back to England, had been
sent for by the King. With the strange inconsistencies that seem to
characterise the behaviour of the Germans, the man to whom he had
surrendered after a gallant defence had treated him rather well. But
from that time on his story was one of brutalities and starvation.

The officer in question had told me his story, and I ventured to refer
to it Her Majesty knew it quite well, and there was no mistaking the
grief in her Voice as she commented on it, especially on that part of
it which showed discrimination against the British prisoners. Major
V---- had especially emphasised the lack of food for the private
soldiers and the fearful trials of being taken back along the lines of
communication, some fifty-two men being locked in one of the small
Continental box cars which are built to carry only six horses. Many of
them were wounded. They were obliged