“I want to have a chat with you, my dear Lady Severn,” said he. “It was you who were good enough to ask me to lunch, and yet I’ve hardly exchanged a word with you.” “Nothing would delight me more,” said Lady Severn. “I will intrust you with my commission, but it will do any time in the course of the afternoon. We can have our chat first.” And they had their chat. It was while it was in progress Amber was sitting at her desk in the Technical Schoolroom listening to Mr. Owen Glendower’s enunciation of the problem in plots which was to serve as an exercise for his pupils. Amber, in her haste to retaliate upon Josephine’s secrecy by being absent when she should call, arrived at the class-room several minutes too soon. She had, however, upon a former occasion, made the acquaintance of the earnest American girl whose name was Miss Quartz Mica Hanker--she was said to be worth some ten million (dollars)--and now she had a pleasant little talk with her. At first Amber hesitated approaching her, for today, Miss Hanker was dressed in deep mourning. She, however, smiled invitingly towards Amber, and Amber crossed the class-room to her. “I fear that you have suffered a bereavement,” said Amber in the hushed voice that suggests sympathy. “Oh, no; at least not recently; but you must surely remember that this is the anniversary of the death of King James the Third,” said Miss Hanker. “Oh, King James the Third?” said Amber. “But there never was a James the Third of England.” “That is the fiction of the Hanoverians,” said Miss Hanker scornfully. “But we know better. I am the Vice-President of the White Rose Society of Nokomis County, Nebraska, and we are loyal to the true dynasty. We decline to acknowledge any allegiance to the distant branch at present in occupation of the Throne. The rightful Queen to-day is the Princess Clementina Sobieska.” “I thought that the Pretender--” began Amber. “The Pretender!” cried Miss Hanker still more scornfully. “He pretended nothing. I am going to separate pretence and the Pretender once and for all when I write my novel--‘The White Rose.’ I came to this side to learn how to do it. I find Owen Glen-dower Richmond very helpful. He has royal blood in his veins--plenty of it. He may be on the throne of Wales yet. Miss Amber, I don’t desiderate a Civil war, but when my novel comes out if the British don’t turn round and put the Princess Clementina Sobieska on their Throne, they are not the people I have been told they are. I don’t advocate extreme measures, but loyalty is loyalty, and the American people are true Royalists. They can never forget that it was one of the Hanoverians who brought about their separation from Britain. That old wound is rankling yet in the breast of every true American.” And then Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond entered the class-room, and Amber nodded _au revoir_ to the American girl, and went to her own desk. CHAPTER XXIX