nned up. Her
father coaxed, pleaded and even threatened, but she refused to lead the
indolent life prescribed by custom; she scorned the sweet and heavy
foods which would enable her to expand into loveliness; she persistently
declined to be fat.

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. Secretly and stealthily he was working out a
frightful vengeance upon his patron. Twenty years before, Count Selim,
in a moment of anger, had called Popova a "Christian dog."

In Morovenia it is flattery to call a man a "liar." It is just the same
as saying to him, "You belong in the diplomatic corps." It is no
disgrace to be branded as a thief, because all business transactions are
saturated with treachery. But to call another a "Christian dog" is the
thirty-third degree of insult.

Popova writhed in spirit when he was called "Christian," but he covered
his wrath and remained in the nobleman's service and waited for his
revenge. And now he was sacrificing the innocent Kalora in order to
punish the father. He said to himself: "If she does not fatten, then her
father's heart will be broken, and he will suffer even as I have
suffered from being called Christian."

It was Popova who, by guarded methods, encouraged her to violent
exercise, whereby she became as hard and trim as an antelope. He
continued to supply her with all kinds of sour and biting foods and
sharp mineral waters, which are the sworn enemies of any sebaceous
condition. And now that she was nineteen, almost at the further boundary
of the marrying age, and slimmer than ever before, he rejoiced greatly,
for he had accomplished his deep and malign purpose, and laid a heavy
burden of sorrow upon Count Selim Malagaski.

III

THE CRUELTY OF LAW

If the father was worried by the prolonged crisis, the younger sister,
Jeneka, was well-nigh distracted, for she could not hope to marry until
Kalora had been properly mated and sent away.

In Morovenia there is a very strict law intended to eliminate the
spinster from the social horizon. It is a law born of craft and inspired
by foresight. The daughters of a household must be married off in the
or