Ommony grinned and nodded. As trustees of a Buddhist mission to the Buddhists, he had tasted his share of that zealotry.
“He obtained the children through the agency of a Jew named Benjamin,” he said. “They were all orphans. They were saved from God knows what. Go on.”
“I have only seen the other children rarely. Now and then they would come here in twos and threes, and I used to question them, but they all seemed too happy to remember their past, and they only had the vaguest notions as to how they ever reached the Ahbor Valley. The general plan was for me to do my best with Elsa during the six months of the year she was with me, and for her to teach them. Tsiang Samdup said it would be good for her to have to teach them—that she would learn more in that way than any other; and as usual he was entirely right.
“To help the other girls he made them pass their teaching on to Tibetan children. But he hasn’t had quite the success with the others that he has had with Elsa; they hadn’t her character to begin with. He never punishes. Have you any idea what patience it calls for to educate growing children without ever inflicting punishment of any kind—what patience and skill?”
Ommony glanced at Diana. “It’s the only way. I never punish,” he said quietly. “Go on.”
“My own share in Elsa’s education has been very slight indeed,” Hannah Sanburn went on. “I had to teach her Western conventions as to table manners and so on, and to explain to her what sort of subjects are taboo in what we call civilized society. I have taught her to wear frocks properly, have corrected her English pronunciation and have given her music lessons. I can’t think of anything else. The real education has been all the other way; it is I who have learned—oh, simply countless things—by observing her. She never argues. You can’t persuade her to tell more than a fraction of what she knows. She is afraid of nothing and of nobody. And she is as full of fun as the veriest young pagan that ever lived.”
“Is she affectionate?” asked Ommony.
“Intensely. But not demonstrative. I should say she loves enormously, but without the slightest jealousy or passion. She has learned Tsiang Samdup’s faculty of divining people’s weakness, and of playing up to their strength instead of taking advantage of the weakness or letting it annoy her. The result, of course, is that she is instantly popular wherever she goes.”
“How in the world have you kept these mission girls from talking about her?” asked Ommony.
“That was quite easy. They adore her. She is their special secret; and they quite understand that if they talk about her outside the mission she will stay away. Besides, the mission girls don’t have much opportunity to talk with outsiders, and those to whom they do talk are superstitious people, who speak with bated breath of San-fun-ho of Ahbor. There have been much harder problems than that.”