She reeled off the imposing list of notables with an air of quiet satisfaction.  Sir Leonard made mental notes of personages to whom he might send presentation copies of his new work “Frederick-William, the Great Elector, a Popular Biography,” as a souvenir of to-day’s auspicious event.

“It is nearly a quarter to three now,” he said; “let us get a good position before the crowd gets thicker.”

“Come along to my car, it is just opposite to the saluting base,” said her ladyship; “I have a police pass that will let us through.  We’ll ask Mrs. Yeovil and her young friend to join us.”

Larry excused himself from joining the party; he had a barbarian’s reluctance to assisting at an Imperial triumph.

“I think I’ll push off to the swimming-bath,” he said to Cicely; “see you again about tea-time.”

Cicely walked with Lady Bailquist and the literary baronet towards the crowd of spectators, which was steadily growing in dimensions.  A newsboy ran in front of them displaying a poster with the intelligence “Essex wickets fall rapidly”—­a semblance of county cricket still survived under the new order of things.  Near the saluting base some thirty or forty motorcars were drawn up in line, and Cicely and her companions exchanged greetings with many of the occupants.

“A lovely day for the review, isn’t it?” cried the Grafin von Tolb, breaking off her conversation with Herr Rebinok, the little Pomeranian banker, who was sitting by her side.  “Why haven’t you brought young Mr. Meadowfield?  Such a nice boy.  I wanted him to come and sit in my carriage and talk to me.”

“He doesn’t talk you know,” said Cicely; “he’s only brilliant to look at.”

“Well, I could have looked at him,” said the Grafin.

“There’ll be thousands of other boys to look at presently,” said Cicely, laughing at the old woman’s frankness.

“Do you think there will be thousands?” asked the Grafin, with an anxious lowering of the voice; “really, thousands?  Hundreds, perhaps; there is some uncertainty.  Every one is not sanguine.”

“Hundreds, anyway,” said Cicely.

The Grafin turned to the little banker and spoke to him rapidly and earnestly in German.

“It is most important that we should consolidate our position in this country; we must coax the younger generation over by degrees, we must disarm their hostility.  We cannot afford to be always on the watch in this quarter; it is a source of weakness, and we cannot afford to be weak.  This Slav upheaval in south-eastern Europe is becoming a serious menace.  Have you seen to-day’s telegrams from Agram?  They are bad reading.  There is no computing the extent of this movement.”

“It is directed against us,” said the banker.

“Agreed,” said the Grafin; “it is in the nature of things that it must be against us.  Let us have no illusions.  Within the next ten years, sooner perhaps, we shall be faced with a crisis which will be only a beginning.  We shall need all our strength; that is why we cannot afford to be weak over here.  To-day is an important day; I confess I am anxious.”