The Slim Princess

XI

AN OUT­ING--A RE­UNION

The Sec­re­tary of the Lega­tion at Wash­ing­ton was sur­prised to re­ceive a let­ter from the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al of Mo­rove­nia re­quest­ing him to find apart­ments for the Princess Kalo­ra and a small ret­inue. The let­ter ex­plained that the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al's daugh­ter had been giv­en a long sea-​voy­age and as­signed to a pe­ri­od of res­idence with­in the qui­et bound­aries of Wash­ing­ton, in the hope that her health might be im­proved.

The Sec­re­tary looked up the list of ho­tels and board­ing-​hous­es. He did not deem it ad­vis­able to send a con­va­les­cent to one of the large and busy ho­tels; nei­ther did he think it prop­er to re­serve rooms for her at an or­di­nary board­ing-​house, where she would sit at the same ta­ble with de­part­ment-​em­ploy­ees and con­gress­men. So he com­pro­mised on a very ex­clu­sive ho­tel pa­tron­ized by leg­is­la­tors who had mon­ey of their own, by many of the ti­tled at­tach­es of the em­bassies, and by fam­ilies that came dur­ing the sea­son with the hope of edg­ing their way in­to of­fi­cial so­ci­ety. He ex­plained to the man­ag­er of the ho­tel that the Princess Kalo­ra was an in­valid, would re­quire se­clud­ed apart­ments, and prob­ably would not care to meet any of the oth­er per­sons liv­ing at the ho­tel.

With­in a week af­ter the rooms had been re­served the in­valid drove up to the Lega­tion to thank the Sec­re­tary for his kind­ness. Now, the Sec­re­tary had lived in mod­ern cap­itals for many years, was trained in diplo­ma­cy, and had schooled him­self nev­er to ap­pear sur­prised. But the Princess Kalo­ra fair­ly bowled him over. He had pic­tured her as a wan and wax­en crea­ture, who would be car­ried to the ho­tel in a closed car­riage or am­bu­lance, there to re­cline by the win­dow­side and look out at the rustling leaves. He had de­cid­ed, af­ter hours of de­lib­er­ation, that the eti­quette of the sit­ua­tion would be for some mem­ber of the Lega­tion to call up­on her about once a week and take flow­ers to her.

And here was the in­valid, bound­ing out of a coupé, trip­ping up the front steps and burst­ing in up­on him like an un­tamed Ama­zon from the prairies of Ne­bras­ka. She wore a tai­lor-​made suit of dark ma­te­ri­al, a sailor hat, tan gloves with big welts on the back and stout, low-​heeled Ox­fords. This was the young wom­an who had come five thou­sand miles to im­prove her health! This was the child of the Ori­ent, and in the Ori­ent, wom­an is a hot­house flow­er. This was the timid young recluse to whom the soft-​spo­ken diplo­mats were to car­ry a few ros­es about once a week.

Why had she called up­on the Sec­re­tary? First, to thank him for hav­ing en­gaged the rooms; sec­ond, to in­vite him to take her out to a coun­try club and teach her the game of golf. She had heard peo­ple at the ho­tel talk­ing about golf. The game had been strong­ly com­mend­ed to her by a con­gress­man's daugh­ter, with whom she had as­cend­ed to the top of the Wash­ing­ton Mon­ument.

When the Sec­re­tary, hav­ing re­cov­ered his breath, asked if she felt strong enough to at­tempt such a vig­or­ous game, she was moved to sil­very laugh­ter. She told what she had ac­com­plished dur­ing three short days in Wash­ing­ton. She had at­tend­ed two mati­nees with Popo­va, had gone mo­tor­ing in­to the Vir­ginia hills, had in­spect­ed all the pub­lic build­ings, and stud­ied ev­ery shop-​win­dow in Penn­syl­va­nia Av­enue. The Sec­re­tary knew that all this out­door free­dom was not usu­al­ly ac­cord­ed a young wom­an of his na­tive do­main, and yet he felt that he had no au­thor­ity to re­strain her or cor­rect her. She was a princess, and he was rel­ative­ly a sub­or­di­nate, and, when she re­quest­ed him to take her to the coun­try club, he gave an em­bar­rassed con­sent.

“You have been in Amer­ica a long time?” she asked.

“About three years.”

“You have met many peo­ple--that is, the im­por­tant peo­ple?”

“All of them are im­por­tant over here. Those that are not very wealthy or very em­inent are get­ting ready to be.”

“I am won­der­ing if you could tell me some­thing about a young man I met abroad. I met him on­ly once, and I have quite for­got­ten his name.”

“I'm afraid I haven't met him.”

“He is rather good-​look­ing and has--well, red hair; not rusty red, but a sort of gold­en red.”

“There are mil­lions of red-​haired young men in Amer­ica.”

“Please don't dis­cour­age me. Now I re­mem­ber the name of his home. He lived in Pennsa--Penn­syl­va­nia, that's it.”

“Penn­syl­va­nia is about four times as large as Mo­rove­nia.”

“But he is very wealthy. He talked as if he had come in­to mil­lions.”

“I can well be­lieve it. The mil­lion­aires of Penn­syl­va­nia are even as the sands of the sea or the leaves of the for­est.”

“He owns some sort of mills or fac­to­ries--where they make steel.”

“Ev­ery mil­lion­aire in Penn­syl­va­nia has some­thing to do with steel. Now, if you were search­ing in that state for a young man who is pen­ni­less and has noth­ing to do with the steel in­dus­try, pos­si­bly I might be of some ser­vice to you. The whole area of Penn­syl­va­nia is sim­ply in­fest­ed with mil­lion­aires. Not all of them are red-​head­ed, but they will be, be­fore Congress gets through with them.”

This play­ful lapse in­to the Amer­ican ver­nac­ular was quite lost up­on the Princess Kalo­ra, who was sit­ting very still and gaz­ing in a most dis­con­so­late man­ner at the Sec­re­tary.

“I felt sure that you could tell me all about him,” she said.

“Be­lieve me, if I en­counter any young mil­lion­aire from Penn­syl­va­nia, whose hair is gold­en-​red, I shall put de­tec­tives on his trail and let you know at once. You met him abroad?”

“At a gar­den par­ty in Mo­rove­nia.”

“In­deed! Gar­den par­ties in Mo­rove­nia! And yet that is not one-​half as sur­pris­ing as to find you here in Wash­ing­ton.”

“You are not dis­pleased to find me here?”

“Charmed--de­light­ed.”

“And you will take me to the coun­try club?”

“At any time. It will re­al­ly give me much plea­sure.”

“I shall drop a note. Good-​by.”

He stood at the win­dow to watch her as she nim­bly jumped in­to the coupé and was driv­en away.

That evening he made a most as­ton­ish­ing re­port to his in­ti­mates of the corps and asked:

“What shall I do?”

“Do you feel com­pe­tent to take charge of her and reg­ulate her con­duct?”

“I do not.”

“Have you in­struc­tions to watch her and make sure that she ob­serves the eti­quette and keeps with­in the re­stric­tions of her own coun­try while she is vis­it­ing in Wash­ing­ton?”

“Noth­ing of the sort.”

“From your first in­ter­view with her, do you be­lieve that it would be ad­vis­able for any of us to at­tempt to in­ter­fere with her plans?”

“De­cid­ed­ly not.”

“Then take her to the coun­try club and teach her the game of golf, and re­mem­ber the old say­ing at home, that no man was ev­er giv­en praise for at­tempt­ing to gov­ern an­oth­er man's fam­ily.”

So it was set­tled that the Lega­tion would not at­tempt any su­per­vi­sion of Kalo­ra's dai­ly pro­gram. And it was a very wise de­ci­sion, for the dai­ly pro­gram was com­pli­cat­ed and the Lega­tion would have been kept ex­ceed­ing­ly busy.

Popo­va be­came mere­ly a sort of foot­man, or mod­ified chap­er­on. He knew that he had no re­al au­thor­ity and sel­dom at­tempt­ed even the most timid sug­ges­tions as to her con­duct. Once or twice he men­tioned health-​food and di­et­ing, and was pooh-​poohed in­to a cor­ner. As for the wom­en at­ten­dants, who had been sent along that they might be the com­pan­ions of the Princess dur­ing the long hours of lone­li­ness and seclu­sion, they were trained to act as hair-​dressers and French maids and re­pair­ing seam­stress­es!

Kalo­ra had mon­ey and a ti­tle and phys­ical at­trac­tions. Could she well es­cape the gai­eties of Wash­ing­ton? Be as­sured that she made no ef­fort to es­cape them. She fol­lowed the busy rou­tine of din­ners and balls, re­cep­tions and af­ter­noon teas, her child­ish en­thu­si­asm nev­er lag­ging. She could play at golf and she seemed to know horse­back rid­ing the first time she tried it, and af­ter the first two weeks she drove her own mo­tor-​car.

The let­ters that went back to Mo­rove­nia were fair­ly drip­ping with su­perla­tives and hap­py ad­jec­tives. She was de­light­ed with Wash­ing­ton; she was in ex­cel­lent health; the mem­bers of the Lega­tion were very thought­ful in their at­ten­tions; the au­tumn weath­er was all that could be de­sired; her apart­ments at the ho­tel were charm­ing. In fact, her whole life was rose-​col­ored, but nev­er a word of re­al news for her anx­ious fa­ther and sis­ter--noth­ing about gain­ing a pound a day. The Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al hoped from the en­cour­ag­ing tone of the let­ters that she was qui­et­ly housed, out in the bor­ders of some primeval for­est, grad­ual­ly en­larg­ing in­to the full­ness of per­fect wom­an­hood.

About three months af­ter her de­par­ture, in or­der to re­as­sure him­self re­gard­ing the progress in her case, he wrote a let­ter to the min­is­ter at Wash­ing­ton. He told the min­is­ter that his child was dis­posed to be un­ruly and that Popo­va had be­come care­less and some­what in­def­inite in his re­ports--and would he, the min­is­ter, please write and let an anx­ious par­ent know the ac­tu­al weight of Princess Kalo­ra?

The min­is­ter re­sent­ed this man­ner of re­quest. He did not feel that it was with­in the du­ties of a high of­fi­cial to go out and weigh young wom­en, so he replied briefly that he knew no way of as­cer­tain­ing the ex­act weight of an ac­ro­bat­ic young wom­an who nev­er stood still long enough to be weighed, but he could as­sure the fa­ther that she was some­what slim­mer and more pe­tite than when she ar­rived in Wash­ing­ton a few weeks be­fore.

This let­ter slow­ly trav­eled back to Mo­rove­nia, and on the very day of its de­liv­ery to Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki, who read it aloud and then went in­to a froth­ing parox­ysm of rage, the Princess Kalo­ra in Wash­ing­ton fig­ured in a most joy­ful episode.

A west­ern mil­lion­aire, who had bought a large cu­bi­cal palace on one of the ra­di­at­ing av­enues, was giv­ing a danc­ing-​par­ty, to which the en­tire blue book had been in­vit­ed. Kalo­ra went, trailed by the long-​suf­fer­ing Popo­va. She wore her most fetch­ing Parisian gown, and decked her­self out with wrought jew­el­ry of quaint and heavy de­sign, which was the en­vy of all the oth­er young wom­en in town, and she put in a very busy night, for she danced with army of­fi­cers, and lieu­tenants of the navy, and one sen­ator, and good­ness knows how many half-​grown diplo­mats.

At two o'clock in the morn­ing she was in the sup­per-​room: a fair­ly late hour for a young wom­an sup­posed to be lead­ing a qui­et life. The food set be­fore her would not have been pre­scribed for a ten­der young crea­ture who was di­et­ing. She was sup­ping ri­otous­ly on stuffed olives. Her com­pan­ion was a young gen­tle­man from the army. They sat be­neath a huge palm. The ta­bles were crowd­ed to­geth­er rather close­ly.

She chanced to look across at the lit­tle ta­ble to her right, and she saw a young man--a young man with light hair al­most ripe enough to be auburn.

With a smoth­ered “Oh!” she dropped the olive poised be­tween her fin­gers, and as she did so, he looked across and saw her and ex­claimed:

“Well, I'll be--”

He came over, al­most up­set­ting two ta­bles in his im­petu­ous course. She ex­pect­ed to see him jump over them.

He seized her hand and gazed at her in grin­ning de­light, and the young gen­tle­man from the army went in­to to­tal eclipse.