The Slim Princess

IV

THE GAR­DEN PAR­TY

Said the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al to him­self in that prime hour for wide-​awake med­ita­tion--the one just be­fore aris­ing for break­fast: “She is not all that she should be, and yet, mil­lions of wom­en have been less than per­fect and most of them have mar­ried.”

He looked hard at the ceil­ing for a full minute and then mur­mured, “Even men have their short­com­ings.”

This dec­la­ra­tion struck him as be­ing sin­ful and al­most in­fi­del in its rad­ical­ism, and yet it seemed to open the way to a log­ical rea­son why some ti­tled bach­elor of dam­aged rep­uta­tion and tot­ter­ing fi­nances might bal­ance his poor as­sets against a dowry and a so­cial po­si­tion, even though he would be com­pelled to fig­ure Kalo­ra in­to the bar­gain.

It must be known that the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al was now sim­ply look­ing for a hus­band for Kalo­ra. He did not hope to top the mar­ket or bring down any no­table catch. He fa­vored any al­liance that would re­sult in no dis­cred­it to his no­ble lin­eage.

“At present they do not even nib­ble,” he so­lil­oquized, still look­ing at the ceil­ing. “They have tak­en fright for some rea­son. They may have an inkling of the aw­ful truth. She is nine­teen. Next year she will be twen­ty--the year af­ter that twen­ty-​one. Then it would be too late. A des­per­ate ex­per­iment is bet­ter than in­ac­tion. I have much to gain and noth­ing to lose. I must ex­hib­it Kalo­ra. I shall bring the young men to her. Some of them may take a fan­cy to her. I have seen peo­ple eat sug­ar on toma­toes and pep­per on ice-​cream. There may be in Mo­rove­nia one--one would be suf­fi­cient--one bach­elor who is no stick­ler for full-​blown love­li­ness. I may find a man who has be­come in­oc­ulat­ed with west­ern here­sies and be­lieves that a wom­an with in­tel­lect is de­sir­able, even though un­der weight. I may find a fool, or an aris­to­crat who has gam­bled. I may stum­ble up­on good for­tune if I put her out among the young men. Yes, I must ex­hib­it her, but how--how?”

He be­gan reach­ing in­to thin air for a pre­text and found one. The in­spi­ra­tion was sim­ple and sat­is­fy­ing.

He would give a gar­den-​par­ty in hon­or of Mr. Raw­ley Plum­ston, the British Con­sul. Of course he would have to in­vite Mrs. Plum­ston and then, out of def­er­ence to Eu­ro­pean cus­tom, he would have his two daugh­ters present. It was on­ly by the use of im­port­ed eti­quette that he could open the way to di­rect courtship.

Pos­si­bly some of the cau­tious young no­ble­men would talk with Kalo­ra, and, find­ing her bright-​eyed, wit­ty, ready in con­ver­sa­tion and with en­thu­si­asm for big and mas­cu­line un­der­tak­ings, be at­tract­ed to her. At the same time her fa­ther de­cid­ed that there was no rea­son why her piti­ful short­age of avoirdupois should be can­did­ly ad­ver­tised. Even at a gar­den-​par­ty, where the guests of hon­or are two En­glish sub­jects, the young wom­en would be re­quired to veil them­selves up to the nose-​tips and hide them­selves with­in a ver­ita­ble co­coon of soft gar­ments.

The in­vi­ta­tions went out and the ac­cep­tances came in. The En­glish were flat­tered. Count Mala­gas­ki was buoyed by new hopes and the daugh­ters were in a day-​and-​night flut­ter, for nei­ther of them had ev­er come with­in speak­ing dis­tance of the re­al young man of their dreams.

On the morn­ing of the day set apart for the début of Kalo­ra, Count Se­lim went to her apart­ments, and, with a rather shame­faced re­luc­tance, gave his di­rec­tions.

“Kalo­ra, I have done all for you that any fa­ther could do for a beloved child and you are still thin,” he be­gan.

“Slen­der,” she cor­rect­ed.

“Thin,” he re­peat­ed. “Thin as a crane--a mere shad­ow of a girl--and, what is more de­plorable, ap­par­ent­ly in­dif­fer­ent to the sor­row that you are caus­ing those most in­ter­est­ed in your wel­fare.”

“I am not in­dif­fer­ent, fa­ther. If, mere­ly by wish­ing, I could be fat, I would make my­self the shape of the French bal­loon that float­ed over Mo­rove­nia last week. I would be so roly-​poly that, when it came time for me to go and meet our guests this af­ter­noon, I would roll in­to their pres­ence as if I were a ten­nis-​ball.”

“Why should you know any­thing about ten­nis-​balls? You, of all the young wom­en in Mo­rove­nia, seem to be the on­ly one with a fond­ness for ath­let­ics. I have heard that in Great Britain, where the wom­en ride and play rude, man­ly games, there has been de­vel­oped a breed as hard as flint--Al­lah pre­serve me from such wom­en!”

“Fa­ther, you are lead­ing up to some­thing. What is it you wish to say?”

“This. You have per­sis­tent­ly dis­obeyed me and made me very un­hap­py, but to-​day I must ask you to re­spect my wish­es. Do not pro­claim to our guests the sad truth re­gard­ing your de­fi­cien­cy.”

“Good!” she ex­claimed gai­ly. “I shall wear a robe the size of an Ara­bi­an tent, and I shall sur­round my­self with soft pil­lows, and I shall wheeze when I breathe and--who knows?--per­haps some 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 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 Mrs. Plum­ston did not un­der­stand, Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki un­der­stood. So did all the young men who were watch­ing the pan­tomime. And Kalo­ra un­der­stood. She looked up and saw the lurk­ing smiles on the faces of the two gal­lants who were car­ry­ing her, and lat­er the tit­ter­ing be­came loud­er and some of the young men laughed aloud.

She leaped from her chair and turned up­on her two tor­men­tors.

“How dare you?” she ex­claimed. “You are mak­ing sport of me in the pres­ence of my fa­ther's guests! You have a con­tempt for me be­cause I am ug­ly. You mock at me in pri­vate be­cause you hear that I am thin. You wish to learn the truth about me. Well, I will tell you. I _am_ thin. I weigh one hun­dred and eigh­teen pounds.”

She was speak­ing loud­ly and de­fi­ant­ly, and all the young men were back­ing away, dis­mayed at the out­break. Her fa­ther el­bowed his way among them, white with ter­ror, and at­tempt­ed to paci­fy her.

“Be still, my child!” he com­mand­ed. “You don't know what you are say­ing!”

“Yes, I do know what I am say­ing!” she per­sist­ed, her voice ris­ing shril­ly. “Do they wish to know about me? Must they know the truth? Then look! _Look_!”

With sweep­ing out­ward ges­tures she threw off the soft quilt­ed robes gath­ered about her, tore away the veil and stood be­fore them in a white gown that fair­ly re­vealed ev­ery mod­ified in-​and-​out of her fig­ure.

What en­sued? Is it nec­es­sary to tell? The cos­tume in which she stood forth was no more startling or im­mod­est than the sim­ple gown which the Amer­ican high-​school girl wears on her Com­mence­ment Day, and it was de­cid­ed­ly more am­ple than the sum of all the gar­ments worn at po­lite so­cial gath­er­ings in com­mu­ni­ties some­what to the west. Nev­er­the­less, the com­pa­ny stood aghast. They were dou­bly hor­ri­fied--first, at the ef­fron­tery of the girl, and sec­ond, at the rev­ela­tion of her re­al per­son, for they saw that she was doomed, help­less, bereft of hope, slim be­yond all cur­ing.