... "Then your name is called out," continued Cilly raptly, "and you give one last squiggle to your train and go forward and curtsey--to _all_ the Royalties in turn, I think, but I'm not quite sure about that part yet--and then you pass along out of the way, and somebody picks up your train and throws it over your shoulder, and you find yourself in another room, and it's all over. Won't it be heavenly?" "Splendid!" replied Mr Blunt, without enthusiasm. "After that," continued Cilly, "my sister is going to take me simply everywhere. And I am to meet lots of nice people. It's too late for Henley and Ascot and that sort of thing this summer, but I am to have them all next year. Later on, we are going to Scotland. I'm not at all a lucky girl, am I?" It was one of those questions to which, despite its form, an experienced Latin grammarian would have unhesitatingly prefixed the particle _nonne_. But the Reverend Godfrey Blunt merely replied in a hollow voice-- "What price me?" Cilly, startled, turned and regarded his hot but honest face, and then lowered her gaze hastily to the region of her own toes. The Reverend Godfrey was a fine upstanding young man, with merry grey eyes; and there was a cheerful and boisterous _bonhomie_ about his conversation which the exigencies of his calling had not yet intoned out of him. No one had ever considered him brilliant, for his strength lay in character rather than intellect. He was a perfect specimen of that unromantic but priceless type with which our public schools and universities never fail to meet the insatiable demands of a voracious Empire. The assistant-commissioner, the company officer, the junior form-master, the slum-curate--these are they that propel the ship of State. Up above upon the quarter-deck, looking portentously wise and occasionally quarrelling for the possession of the helm, you may behold their superiors--the Cabinet Minister, the Prelate, the Generalissimo. But our friends remain below the water-line, unheeded, uncredited, and see to it that the wheels go round. They expect no thanks, and they are not disappointed. The ship goes forward, and that is all they care about. Of such is the British Empire.