The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-29


 by Vandyk.
 AA---------- shade, Marie of Roumania looked ''every inch of a queen."
 One had always imagined her. some how, as dark, like her latest heroine the mountain maiden Glava, who had ''night-colored tresses." On the con- trary, her Majestys own abundant hair, which nipples away from her face and is gathered into a knot at the back of her small head, is, as she her self probably would express it, the color of ripe corn. Her eyes are very blue and what she described to me as her beauty secrets-fresh air, fruit and early rising-have kept her skin, if not quite like a girls, at least like that of much younger woman. Tall and fine of figure, she is always gowned ex- quisitely. She herself has described dress as "the very expression of a wO- man." and when, she received me at the Roumanian legation, in the fashionable Grosvenor street, her Majesty had lex pressed herself" by means of a dove grey creation straight from the Rue de la Prix, with another of the large hats she affects shading her sanmated face.
 Regarding Roumania's queen a con- siderable amount of nonsense, both laudatory and otherwise, has been writ ten. Among other things it has been stated by a biographer who presum- ably has never met her that ''she never has mastered English or any other language" The fact is that the Queen speaks English like any other cultivat- ed English woman, without the slight est trace of foreign accent, in spite of the thirty odd years she has spent in the country of her adoption. And she is a clever, perhaps one might even say brilliant, conversationalist.
 She gently but firmly declined to talk politics.
 Wants To Visit America
 Rumor las had it more than once that King Ferdinand's many sided con sort was at long last to visit America where a cynic has prophesied that Identification awaits her-and recently the report has been revived.
 America beckons to me most at tractively." she replied to a question, land visit Is among the hopes I may realize one day, but when it is depend ent upon many things. At present my people need me; they vii need me for a long time to come. l have had invita- tions to visit every part of your coun- try, but its enormous area will always present a difficulty. America lit is big word. Should I tour there, you see. should want to satisfy as many people as possible; and when should ever get away"
 ''I should like to become acquainted with every sphere of life in America. To meet even very humble people. The humble man, I find, is just as we'll worth knowing as the man who moves the world. It Is not only among the so-called great that care to make my friends" And it was here that she added: ''The world, I am told, is in- terested in me, If so, it is probably because l am interested in the world. There is always a mutuality about such things, is there not?"
 Even the comparatively brief audience which Queen Marie was able to grant me took lot of contriving and not a little wire pulling to bring to pass. I had been warned that during the state visit of her majesty and King Ferdi- Aohu tO A1h6Aallh Q AAAAB anu bare three days crowded with cere- monials-it was out of the question for even the most favored journalist to hope for ever so brief an interview with the most gifted royal woman in Europe. But during the fortnight that Queen Marie was staying on in England, as the guest of her sister, the Infanta Beatrice of Spain, something, it was thought, might be arranged.
 Is A Business Woman Too
 The arranging was unexpectedly diff ficulty. Even Roumania's 8 official rep resentatives here had failed to visualize the spell of the queen, famous alike as a royal matchmaker who has married two of her daughters to kings and will probably get another monarch for the third; as placer of big contracts, as q negotiator of loans and treaties and as an authoress and musician of some note. Add to all the rest that Queen Marie, as q daughter of the late duke of Edinburg, Queen NictOria's second son, Is claimed as an English princess (she was born in this country and lived here up to the time of her marriage, at seventeen. to the heir to the throne of ROumanin), and you will readily com Nhy lHAJCoNyt CNCll the supposedly private part of her visit, has had a vogue such as no other royal visitor has enjoyed in recent years.
 So rapidly, in fact did the queens engagements crowd upon one another that she appeared at one of them held in the late afternoon in decOlette, ex- plaining with her customary nonchal- ance that she was going on to the opera and wouldn't have time to change.
 When, the only newspaper writer to be favored, eventually found my self in the royal presence, 1t was with the harassing knowledge that in the adjoining room was distinguished company including the famous royal academieian, Sir John Lavery the Infanta Beatrice, Madame Tituleeco, wife of the Roumnnian minister to Eng. land Sir Harry Britain and dozen English and continental title-bearers,