“Why leave out poor Queen Anne?”
“She was a very excellent woman. As soon as she came to the throne she declared her resolution ‘not to follow the example of her predecessors in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the rest.’ The common people don’t err in their estimate of rulers, and they knew what they were about in christening her ‘Good Queen Anne.’”
“Now I’m sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“You have never told me what you were doing in Berlin.”
“You haven’t asked me,” she broke in.
“Did it matter? I——”
Irene’s intuition warned her that this harmless chatter had swung round with lightning rapidity to a personal issue. Sad to relate, she had not washed her face or hands for eleven days, so a blush told no tales; but she interrupted again rather nervously, “What is it you are sure of?”
“You must have been a governess-companion in some German family of position. I can foresee a trying future. I must brush up my dates, or lose caste forever. Isn’t there a doggerel jingle beginning:
“In fifty-five and fifty-four
Came Cæsar o’er to Britain’s shore?