“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.