The Slim Princess | Page 5

dark-eyed
young man worth a million piasters will be deceived, and will come to
you to-morrow, and buy me--buy me at so much a pound." And she
shrieked with laughter.
"Stop!" commanded her father. "You refuse to take me seriously, but I
am in earnest. Do not humiliate me in the presence of my friends this
afternoon."
Then he hurried away before she had time to make further sport of him.
To Count Selim Malagaski this garden-party was the frantic effort of a
sinking man. To Kalora it was a lark. From the pure fun of the thing,
she obeyed her father. She wore four heavily quilted and padded gowns,
one over another, and when she and Jeneka were summoned from their
apartments and went out to meet the company under the trees, they
were almost like twins and both duck-like in general outlines.
First they met Mrs. Rawley Plumston, a very tall, bony and dignified
woman in gray, wearing a most flowery hat. To every man of
Morovenia Mrs. Plumston was the apotheosis of all that was
undesirable in her sex, but they were exceedingly polite to her, for the
reason that Morovenia owed a great deal of money in London and it
was a set policy to cultivate the friendship of the British.

While Jeneka and Kalora were being presented to the consul's wife,
these same young men, the very flower of bachelorhood, stood back at
a respectful distance and regarded the young women with
half-concealed curiosity. To be permitted to inspect young women of
the upper classes was a most unusual privilege, and they knew why the
privilege had been extended to them. It was all very amusing, but they
were too well bred to betray their real emotions. When they moved up
to be presented to the sisters they seemed grave in their salutations and
restrained themselves, even though one pair of eyes, peering out above
a very gauzy veil, seemed to twinkle with mischief and to corroborate
their most pronounced suspicions.
Out of courtesy to his guests, Count Malagaski had made his
garden-party as deadly dull as possible. Little groups of bored people
drifted about under the trees and exchanged the usual commonplace
observations. Tea and cakes were served under a canopy tent and the
local orchestra struggled with pagan music.
Kalora found herself in a wide and easy kind of a basket-chair sitting
under a tree and chatting with Mrs. Plumston. She was trying to be at
her ease, and all the time she knew that every young man present was
staring at her out of the corner of his eye.
Mrs. Plumston, although very tall and evidently of brawny strength,
had a twittering little voice and a most confiding manner. She was
immensely interested in the daughter of the Governor-General. To meet
a young girl who had spent her life within the mysterious shadows of
an oriental household gave her a tingling interest, the same as reading a
forbidden book. She readily won the confidence of Kalora, and Kalora,
being most ingenuous and not educated to the wiles of the
drawing-room, spoke her thoughts with the utmost candor.
"I like you," she said to Mrs. Plumston, "and, oh, how I envy you! You
go to balls and dinners and the theater, don't you?"
"Alas, yes, and you escape them! How I envy you!"
"Your husband is a very handsome man. Do you love him?"

"I tolerate him."
"Does he ever scold you for being thin?"
"Does he _what_?"
"Is he ever angry with you because you are not big and plump
and--and--pulpy?"
"Heavens, no! If my husband has any private convictions regarding my
personal appearance, he is discreet enough to keep them to himself. If
he isn't satisfied with me, he should be. I have been working for years
to save myself from becoming fat and plump and--pulpy."
"Then you don't think fat women are beautiful?"
"My child, in all enlightened countries adipose is woman's worst enemy.
If I were a fat woman, and a man said that he loved me, I should know
that he was after my bank-account. Take my advice, my dear young
lady, and bant."
"Bant?"
"Reduce. Make yourself slender. You have beautiful eyes, beautiful
hair, a perfect complexion, and with a trim figure you would be simply
incomparable."
Kalora listened, trembling with surprise and pleasure. Then she leaned
over and took the hand of the gracious Englishwoman.
"I have a confession to make," she said in a whisper. "I am not fat--I
am slim--quite slim."
And then, at that moment, something happened to make this whole
story worth telling. It was a little something, but it was the beginning of
many strange experiences, for it broke up the wonderful garden-party in
the grounds of the Governor-General, and it gave Morovenia