less.

Continental travel, anywhere away from the great tourist tracks,
was a favoured hobby with Lady Barbara, and Lester joined her as
often as possible. Eastertide usually found her at Knobaltheim,
an upland township in one of those small princedoms that make
inconspicuous freckles on the map of Central Europe.

A long-standing acquaintanceship with the reigning family made her
a personage of due importance in the eyes of her old friend the
Burgomaster, and she was anxiously consulted by that worthy on the
momentous occasion when the Prince made known his intention of
coming in person to open a sanatorium outside the town. All the
usual items in a programme of welcome, some of them fatuous and
commonplace, others quaint and charming, had been arranged for,
but the Burgomaster hoped that the resourceful English lady might
have something new and tasteful to suggest in the way of loyal
greeting. The Prince was known to the outside world, if at all,
as an old-fashioned reactionary, combating modern progress, as it
were, with a wooden sword; to his own people he was known as a
kindly old gentleman with a certain endearing stateliness which
had nothing of standoffishness about it. Knobaltheim was anxious
to do its best. Lady Barbara discussed the matter with Lester and
one or two acquaintances in her little hotel, but ideas were
difficult to come by.

"Might I suggest something to the Gnädige Frau?" asked a sallow
high-cheek-boned lady to whom the Englishwoman had spoken once or
twice, and whom she had set down in her mind as probably a
Southern Slav.