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Kalora's education was being directed by a superannuated professor named Popova. He was so antique and book-wormy that none of the usual objections urged against the male sex seemed to hold good in his case, and he had the free run of the palace. Count Selim Malagaski trusted him implicitly. Popova fawned upon the Governor-General, and seemed slavish in his devotion.
It has been explained that in Morovenia, obesity and feminine beauty increased in the same ratio. The woman reigning in the hearts of men was the one who could displace the most atmosphere. Because of the fashionableness of fat, Count Selim Malagaski, Governor-General of Morovenia, was very unhappy. He had two daughters. One was fat; one was thin.
They knew that Kalora weighed less than one hundred and twenty pounds. She was tall, lithe, slender, sinuous, willowy, hideous. The fact that poor old Count Malagaski had made many unsuccessful attempts to fatten her was a stock subject for jokes of an unrefined and Turkish character.
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.
Count Malagaski sat in the large, over-decorated audience room, alone with his sorrowful meditations. An attendant brought him a note. "The man is at the gate," said the attendant. "He started to come in. We tried to keep him out. He pushed three of the soldiers out of the way, but we finally held him back, so he sends this note."
Count Malagaski, greatly perturbed and almost in a state of collapse over the unhappy affair in the garden, was returning to his apartments when the second surprising episode of the day came to a noisy climax. He heard the uproar and had the two guards brought before him.
A few moments later Count Selim Malagaski found himself sitting face to face with a ruddy young man in a blue suit a square-shouldered, smiling young gentleman, with hair of subdued auburn. "I take it that you're a busy man and I'll come to the point," said the young man, pulling up his chair. "I try to be business from the word go, even in matters of this kind. You have a daughter."
These casual comments did not seem to arouse any burning curiosity among the young men, and up to the day of Kalora's nineteenth anniversary they had not had the effect of bringing to the father any of those guarded inquiries which, under the oriental custom, are always preliminary to an actual proposal of marriage. Count Selim Malagaski had a double reason for wishing to see Kalora married.
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.
Pike turned to meet his prospective father-in-law. "You meant well, but you got twisted," he remarked. "This is the one I was looking for." At first Count Selim Malagaski was too dumfounded for speech. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Can it be possible that you, a man worth millions of piasters, an exalted ruler, a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, have deliberately chosen this waspy, weedy "
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