“They are a gift from the Sheikh, my father,” replied Zarah, as she bent low before the astounded little school mistress. “To the honoured head of the house in which his daughter is to dwell!”
“Quite so, my dear, quite so. I’m delighted with the pets. Come with me!” replied Miss Amelia, who could always be depended upon to rise to any occasion, and who secretly returned thanks that the great Sheikh had not seen fit to send six oxen as well.
The heads of the house withdrew, after the usual introduction of the new pupil to the older ones had taken place and a little speech of welcome been made by Helen Raynor, the head of the school. She was the girls’ ideal, before whose shrine they offered the incense of their girlish hero-worship, and was leaving next day to act as secretary to her grandfather who, an expert in the sinking of wells, was known all the world over as Egypt’s Water Finder.
Zarah, accustomed to cushions on the floor, sat down uncomfortably on a chair at the end of the table and finally drew her feet up under her, to the delight of the girls who surreptitiously nudged each other until they met the reproachful eyes of Helen Raynor, their best-beloved and model in all things.
They gasped when Zarah, whose thoughts were anywhere but on the doings of the moment, took a handful of rice from the bowl passed down the line, and stuffed a fair quantity between her teeth with her jewelled, hennaed fingers, which she proceeded to wipe forthwith on the table-cloth; but when she made use of her beautiful teeth to tear the meat from the drumstick of the emaciated fowl which followed the rice, then Maria Oporto, whose own methods of mastication were unduly audible and left much to be desired, burst into a peal of uncontrollable laughter.
The laughter did not last long, for the simple reason that, with unerring aim and almost as though she handled a loaded stick, Zarah flung the chicken bone full in Maria Oporto’s swarthy face, hitting her straight across the mouth; whereupon, taking no notice of Helen Raynor, as lovely in her golden hair and blue eyes and exquisite skin as was Zarah in her dusky beauty, when she rose to quell the tumult which broke out at the table, Maria Oporto, in floods of tears, subsided on the floor.
“Girls!” Helen cried above the uproar that ensued, “do remember what is expected of us towards a new boarder, and play up for the courtesy of the house; at present, you are being simply vulgar.” There fell a complete silence. “It’s ten to one if any of us were lunching with the friends of our new companion that they would find our habits unusual, not to say strange.”
She smiled across at Zarah, who sat sullenly, without a smile, victim of a sudden, violent jealousy of the other girl’s charm and beauty and breeding.
Yet might all have gone well if Maria Oporto had not lifted her swarthy face, stained with a mixture of gravy and tears, above the edge of the table.
“Yes!” she shrilled at Zarah in execrable Spanish, “and it’s a pity Helen Raynor’s going away to-morrow or you might have learned how to behave from her. She’s wonderful, and beautiful, and the dearest darling in the whole world, but you will never, never, never be anything like her, you couldn’t, you’re a savage, that’s what you are, a savage!”