The intruder laughed contemptuously and waddled into the room between the rows of women, who had risen at her entrance. She was still a young woman, and might have been considered beautiful but for her exceeding stoutness (a quality, however, which is not considered a defect in Ethiopia), and she was dressed with the utmost magnificence which Kubbet-ul-Haj could show. Rich satins of varying colours, Kashmir shawls, and transparent gauzes were heaped upon her person in a way which declared them to be intended for display rather than for use; her eyelids were blackened, and her hands and lips reddened, and she was literally loaded with jewels. Several women followed her, in one of whom Georgia recognised the girl who had shouted across the courtyard to her on the last occasion of her visiting the Palace, and these also had donned all their finest possessions in preparation for paying this call. It was the direst insult to come dressed in such a style for a visit which was nominally one of condolence; but Nur Jahan’s mother dissembled her wrath, and invited the young Queen to take a seat on the divan, while her attendants grouped themselves around her. When the visitor was comfortably settled, and had been accommodated with a pipe, she favoured Georgia with a prolonged stare.
“Thou art the English doctor-woman?” she asked, so insolently that her maids giggled at the tone.
“I am,” returned Georgia, looking her over calmly.
“Why hast thou never visited me, to eat bread in my chamber?”
“I have never received an invitation,” said Georgia.
Antar Khan’s mother turned to her attendants.
“Hear the doctor lady!” she cried. “She is waiting for an invitation, instead of sending humbly to ask that she might be allowed to kiss the Queen’s feet!”
Not considering that so self-evident a fact called for comment, Georgia remained silent, which her assailant was unable to do.
“Think not that I came here to see thee,” she said.
“Oh, not at all,” said Georgia, pleasantly; and there was a suspicious tremble in Rahah’s voice as she translated the answer.