The Slim Princess

X

ON THE WING

The train rolled away from the low and dingy sta­tion and was in the open coun­try of Mo­rove­nia. Kalo­ra and her el­der­ly guardian and the young wom­en who were to be her com­pan­ions dur­ing the pe­ri­od of ex­ile had been tucked away in­to ad­join­ing com­part­ments. Each young wom­an was muf­fled and veiled ac­cord­ing to the most dis­creet and or­tho­dox rules.

Popo­va's bright red fez con­trast­ed strange­ly with his sil­ver­ing hair, but no more strange­ly than did this won­drous ex­pe­ri­ence of start­ing for a new world con­trast with the qui­et years that he had spent among his books.

The train sped in­to the farm-​lands. On ei­ther side was a wide stretch of har­vest fields, heav­ing in­to gen­tle bil­lows, with here and there a shab­by clus­ter of build­ings. If Kalo­ra had on­ly known, Mo­rove­nia was very much like the far-​away Amer­ica, ex­cept that Mo­rove­nia had not learned to dec­orate the hill­sides with bill­boards.

At last she was to have a taste of free­dom! No fa­ther to scold and plead; no much-​su­pe­ri­or sis­ter to tor­ment her with re­proach­es; no peer­ing through grat­ed win­dows at one lit­tle rect­an­gle of out­side sun­shine. To be sure, Popo­va had re­ceived ex­plic­it and pos­itive in­struc­tions con­cern­ing her gov­ern­ment. But Popo­va--pshaw!

She un­wound her veil and re­moved her head-​gear and sat bare­head­ed by the car-​win­dow, greed­ily wel­com­ing each new pic­ture that swung in­to view.

“You must keep your face cov­ered while we are in pub­lic or se­mi-​pub­lic places,” said Popo­va gen­tly, re­peat­ing his in­struc­tions to the very let­ter.

“I shall not.”

Thus end­ed any ex­er­cise of Popo­va's au­thor­ity dur­ing the whole jour­ney.

Be­fore the train had come to Bu­dapest all the young wom­en, urged on to in­sub­or­di­na­tion, had re­moved their veils, and Kalo­ra had bold­ly in­vad­ed an­oth­er com­part­ment to en­gage in rapt and fever­ish di­alogue with a lit­tle but vi­va­cious French­wom­an.

Two hours out from Vi­en­na, the tu­tor found her in­volved in a busi­ness con­fer­ence with a guard of the train. She had learned that the tick­ets per­mit­ted a stopover in Vi­en­na. She wished to see Vi­en­na. She had de­cid­ed to spend one whole day in Vi­en­na.

Popo­va, as usu­al, made a fee­ble show of main­tain­ing his au­thor­ity, but he was over­ruled.

Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki, at home, con­sult­ing the pre­ar­ranged sched­ule, said, “This morn­ing they have ar­rived in Paris and Popo­va is ar­rang­ing for the steamship tick­ets.”

At which very mo­ment, Kalo­ra was in an open car­riage driv­ing from one Vi­en­na shop to an­oth­er, try­ing to find ready-​made gar­ments sim­ilar to those worn by Mrs. Raw­ley Plum­ston. Popo­va was now a bun­dle-​car­ri­er.

The shop­ping in Vi­en­na was mere­ly a pre­lude to a ri­otous ex­trav­agance of time and mon­ey in Paris. Popo­va, writ­ing un­der dic­ta­tion, sent a mes­sage to Mo­rove­nia to the ef­fect that they had been com­pelled to wait a week in or­der to get com­fort­able rooms on a steam­er.

Kalo­ra had the dress­mak­ers work­ing night and day.

She and her moth­er and her grand­moth­er and her great-​grand­moth­er and the whole line of ma­ter­nal an­ces­tors had been un­der sup­pres­sion and had at­tired them­selves ac­cord­ing to the di­rec­tions of a re­li­gious Prophet, who had been ig­no­rant con­cern­ing col­or ef­fects. And yet, now that Kalo­ra had es­caped from the cage, the orig­inal in­stinct as­sert­ed it­self. The love of fin­ery can not be elim­inat­ed from any fem­inine species.

When she board­ed the steam­er she was out­ward­ly a crea­ture of the New World.

From the mo­ment of em­bark­ing she seemed ex­hil­arat­ed by the salt air and the spir­it of democ­ra­cy.

She lin­gered in New York--more shop­ping.

By the time she ar­rived at Wash­ing­ton and went breez­ing in to call up­on a cer­tain dig­ni­fied young Sec­re­tary, the trans­for­ma­tion was com­plete. She might not have been put to­geth­er strict­ly ac­cord­ing to mode, but she was learn­ing rapid­ly, and will­ing to learn more rapid­ly.