"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 something to talk about for many weeks to come. It all came about as follows:
At the military club, the night before the party, a full score of young men, representing the quality, sat at an oblong table and partook of refreshments not sanctioned by the Prophet. They were young men of registered birth and supposititious breeding, even though most of them had very little head back of the ears and wore the hair clipped short and were big of bone, like work-horses, and had the gusty manners of the camp.
They were foolishly gloating over the prospect of meeting the two daughters of the Governor-General, and were telling what they knew about them with much freedom, for, even in a monarchy, the chief executive and his family are public property and subject to the censorship of any one who has a voice for talking.
Of these male gossips there were a few who said, with gleeful certainty, that the elder daughter was a mere twig who could hide within the shadow of her bounteous and incomparable sister.
"Wait until to-morrow and you shall see," they said, wagging their heads very wisely.
To-morrow had come and with it the party and here was Kalora—a pretty face peering out from a great pod of clothes.
They stood back and whispered and guessed, until one, more enterprising than the others, suggested a bold experiment to set all doubts at rest.
Count Malagaski had provided a diversion for his guests. A company of Arabian acrobats, on their way from Constantinople to Paris, had been intercepted, and were to give an exhibition of leaping and pyramid-building at one end of the garden. While Kalora was chatting with Mrs. Plumston, the acrobats had entered and, throwing off their yellow-and-black striped gowns, were preparing for the feats. They were behind the two women and at the far end of the garden. Mrs. Plumston and Kalora would have to move to the other side of the tree in order to witness the exhibition. This fact gave the devil-may-care young bachelors a ready excuse.
"Do as I have directed and you shall learn for yourselves," said the one who had invented the tactics. "I tell you that what you see is all shell. Now then—"
Four conspirators advanced in a half-careless and sauntering manner to where Kalora and the consul's wife sat by the sheltering tree, intent upon their exchange of secrets.
"Pardon me, Mrs. Plumston, but the acrobats are about to begin," said one of the young men, touching the fez with his forefinger.
"Oh, really?" she exclaimed, looking up. "We must see them."
"You must face the other way," said the young man. "They are at the east end of the garden. Permit us."
Whereupon the young man who had spoken and a companion who stood at his side very gently picked up Mrs. Plumston's big basket-chair between them and carried it around to the other side of the tree. And the two young men who had been waiting just behind picked up Kalora's chair and carried her to the other side of the tree, and put her down beside the consul's wife.
Did they carry her? No, they dandled her. She was as light as a feather for these two young giants of the military. They made a palpable show of the ridiculous ease with which they could lift their burden. It may have been a forward thing to do, but they had done it with courtly politeness, and the consul's wife, instead of being annoyed, was pleased and smiling over the very pretty little attention, for she could not know at the moment that the whole maneuver had grown out of a wager and was part of a detestable plan to find out the actual weight of the Governor-General's elder daughter.
If