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diff --git a/78108-0.txt b/78108-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44f062e --- /dev/null +++ b/78108-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7015 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78108 *** + + + + + + + THE BITTER TEA + OF GENERAL YEN + + by + GRACE ZARING STONE + + Author of + The Heaven and Earth of Doña Elena + + + Illustrated by + Barbara Macfarlane + + + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + Publishers * Indianapolis + + + +[Illustration: Title page] + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1930 + BY GRACE ZARING STONE + + + + Printed in the United States of America + + + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO., INC. + BOOK MANUFACTURERS + BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + + To + ELEANOR + Who was grown up when necessary + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter I headpiece] + + + THE BITTER TEA + OF + GENERAL YEN + + +CHAPTER I + +Megan, drawing her chair over to the window, saw that the rain had +given an air of transcience to the solid Chinese earth. For the +moment it had stopped raining and all the pools reflected cloudy sky, +making the roadway an unsubstantial track over emptiness; willow +trees hanging over a wall at the far side of the road were silvered +and delicate with moisture, and even the brutal fact of barbed-wire +entanglements stretching along the foot of the wall was tempered by +the fragility of tremulous drops. She had been told that the +barbed-wire entanglements bounded the French Concession and that +farther to the left the opening in the barricade marked the entrance +to the Avenue Joffre, one of the chief thoroughfares of the +Concession. + +A French non-commissioned officer and several Senegalese soldiers +stood at the entrance and examined, bored but relentless, all the +traffic going in and out. All afternoon, in spite of bad weather, +there had been a straggling passage of motors, rickshaws, +wheelbarrows, and Chinese men in long black skirts, holding large +umbrellas, fastidiously picking their way among the puddles. Megan +since her arrival in the house, while talking to the Jacksons and +when they had gone, unpacking, directing the amah's pressing, was +always conscious of the windows. In the dimness of the European +house those gray windows opened strangely on to the Chinese road. +She was more and more conscious of them as she did various small +things that had to be done, longing to possess them undisturbed, and +when finally she drew up a chair in the little drawing-room and +rested her elbows on the sill, she looked out at that moment when +China, washed in a luminous impermanency, presented itself to her not +with the dull impact of a solid fact but with the peculiar intensity +of a vision seen partly from within. + +On the road a car came at tremendous speed from Siccawei toward the +Avenue Joffre. The fans of muddy water curving back from its wheels +looked like the fins of a porpoise, and like a porpoise it lunged +over the uneven road. As Megan watched, only dreamily noting, a +small Ford released from examination at the entrance to the Avenue +Joffre unexpectedly darted forward, and to avoid it the large car +swerved sharply to the left, skidded and crashed into a telephone +pole. Megan heard the crash and the tinkle of breaking glass. She +jumped up and ran out the front door. Two of the Senegalese were +there ahead of her and several passing Chinese had gathered. The +hood was smashed in, the engine wrecked, and the chauffeur had been +thrown through the wind-shield and flattened against the telephone +pole. But Megan, only now conscious of a real intrusion, stood +reluctant before the necessity of doing something about it. + +The door of the car opened and a Chinese man stepped out. He was +muffled in a coat too heavy for the weather, but his hat had fallen +off and a thin, dark trickle of blood ran down his smooth temple. He +stood for a moment beside the ruined car feeling himself +apprehensively about the ribs, shoulders and arms and, satisfied that +he was unhurt, feeling more tenderly still each finger of his +exceedingly beautiful hands as if he could not too completely +reassure himself that their slight bones were intact. He was so +absorbed that Megan said to him sharply: + +"Your chauffeur is hurt." + +He looked at her vaguely and smiled with a curious lift of his +eyebrows, then obviously as reluctant as she was, took a few steps +toward his chauffeur and glanced down at him. He turned toward her +again and clicked his tongue. + +"Annoying!" he exclaimed in English. + +Another Chinese man stepped from the car and walked around to observe +the extent of the disaster with the foolishly hesitant movements of a +fowl picking its way about a littered garden. He also was smothered +in a heavy coat, but a cap pulled over his eyes hid his face, and as +everything he wore was apparently several sizes too large for him, he +seemed a boy of sixteen or even younger. He and the Chinese man were +about to enter into a consultation when the French sergeant walked up +and, brushing curtly between them, began to question the Chinese man. +The boy moved away and the man answered the sergeant, smiling as +though their meeting furnished an unexpected but agreeable +opportunity for conversation. Finally he took a paper from his +pocket and showed it to the sergeant. The sergeant examined it, then +looked up at him, looked him over, and with deliberate mockery +saluted him. The Chinese man continued to smile, though his smile +now was not directed at the sergeant; it became diffused, meditative, +touching rather some particularly uncertain aspect of humanity just +revealed to him. He turned away. In touching his forehead to return +the salute he had discovered his fingers to be smeared with blood and +this further reminder of the hazards of life seemed to deepen his +meditation into melancholy. His smile vanished. + +"Annoying," he murmured once more. + +From the Ford which had stopped a few yards up the road jumped a +vigorous, black-bearded priest in a black soutane. He ran toward +them and, paying no attention to any one else, bent at once over the +chauffeur whom he laid out flat on the ground, uttering loud +exclamations. Megan knew that the chauffeur was undeniably the real, +if the less interesting sufferer, but she felt that the Chinese man +had met with an unmerited slight from the French sergeant. And he +too had been actually hurt. She exclaimed impulsively: + +"Please take my handkerchief," and drew a clean folded one from the +pocket of her cardigan. The Chinese man answered, "Thank you, but I +have one." + +He took a large handkerchief out of his own pocket, unfolding it to +its full size and displaying a character embroidered in the corner. +Something in his gesture made Megan realize her offer had implied +that he could not possess a handkerchief. She was resentful, not +only because he had checked her impulse but he had also made it seem +a bit absurd. She turned away from him abruptly and joined the +priest. + +The Senegalese and the French sergeant strolled over but they only +stood looking down while the priest felt the chauffeur's body for +broken bones. Megan knelt beside him in the attitude of one ready to +help and even with some reluctance ran her fingers over the +chauffeur's skull through bristling, oily black hair. The priest +lifted an eyelid. Then he said to her in French: + +"And the skull, is it broken?" + +"I don't think so," said Megan; "perhaps you had better examine it." + +The chauffeur's face was a mass of cuts, with glass driven into the +flesh. She began to feel a little sick. + +"It is horrible, isn't it?" she said. + +"Yes, they can't stand much," said the priest, "they are desperately +undernourished." + +"No one seems to concern himself," said Megan, glancing still +resentfully at the Chinese man who was cleaning his forehead with +little dabs of the handkerchief. + +"Oh," said the priest, shrugging his broad shoulders, "what do you +want! They are five hundred million souls!" + +And Megan saw that it was difficult for him to bear in mind the +surpassing value of such a super-abundant commodity. + +The sound of another car stopping made her look up. A crowd had +gathered by this time and the magnificence of the new arrival +diverted most of the attention. Like the first it was a shining and +obviously new car but spattered high with the mud of rough and rainy +roads. The windows were draped in chenille fringes, and through them +Megan saw a woman's head, her black hair melting smoothly into the +dusk of the background, her face vivid as a painted egg-shell, +supported apparently on a shining collar of lime-green satin. She +lowered a window and leaning forward made little chirping +ejaculations at the sight of the wreck. The Chinese man walked over +and spoke to her. He leaned on the window, and as he talked to her +with considerable animation, Megan looked at him more attentively. +Nothing about him suggested any particular age; his face was smooth +and of a uniform pallor, the nose long and aquiline, the eyes bulging +a little, there was a curl of humor at each side of his small, full +mouth and a certain vigor to the modeling of his forehead, but the +hands with which he gesticulated as he talked betrayed him, not so +much by their feminine delicacy and beauty as by a way he had of +handling things that was both fastidious and ineffectual. + +The priest got up from his knees and went over to speak to the +Chinese man. The small Chinese in the great coat and the sergeant +joined them. The priest evidently made suggestions in Chinese. They +talked a great deal, and the sergeant watched them cynically, to +indicate that he had the proper contempt for a conversation of which +he could not understand a word. Finally a decision was arrived at. +The priest and the chauffeur of the second car picked up the injured +chauffeur and put him into the second car. They laid him on the +floor at the feet of the lady, bending his legs into an uncomfortable +position, and the two Chinese men got in after him. Then they drove +off. The priest, having watched them go, took off his hat to Megan +and went to his Ford, which awaited him a little farther up the road. +The small crowd of coolies and passers-by continued, for want of +anything better, to stand listlessly about the damaged car. It began +to rain again. As Megan slowly crossed the road to the house the +French sergeant, looking at her ankles, hummed a French song called +_Valentine_. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter II headpiece] + +CHAPTER II + +Inside the house Megan sat down by the fireplace, in which a fire was +being built and lighted by the coolie. In leaving the street she had +turned her back on China; the house she was in was on the wrong side +of the barbed-wire barricade and in Chinese territory, but it might +have been a house in Brighton, as English as it was possible to make +it. There was a cottage piano in one corner, loaded with photographs +in standing frames; a plum-colored carpet covered the floor and on +the walls hung pictures, evidently belonging to a series and +representing dogs of different breeds sitting on cushions, taking +tea, and wearing lace caps and top-hats. The tea table was being set +near the fire by the number one boy for the Jacksons, who had said +they would be back about five o'clock. + +It was the Jacksons who met Megan on her arrival at Shanghai that +morning. The ship anchored down the Whangpoo, and before she could +step aboard the launch that was to take the passengers up to the +jetty she was accosted on deck by a small, shabby man with a soft +apologetic voice and a very drooping mustache who told her he was Mr. +Jackson, of the China Inland Mission, sent to meet her. Megan turned +so pale that the little man caught at her arm to steady her. + +"But Bob," she stammered, "has anything happened to him?" + +"No, no," cried Mr. Jackson hastily, "he is well, he is quite well." +And all the time the launch was chugging up the river he continued to +reassure her as to Bob's safety, for he was terribly afraid of +emotional women, that is, when they were of European race; the +outcries of a recently widowed Chinese he was capable of taking with +calm. He explained to her that Bob had been unable to leave +Changsha, and that while he was not exactly in actual danger, still +there was a great deal of fighting around Changsha and at various +points along the river, so that he might even be delayed for weeks. + +"But can't I get up to him?" asked Megan. "After all, I've come all +this way to marry him." + +"Well," said Mr. Jackson soothingly, "well, as a matter of actual +fact you cannot. I've tried to get a permit for your passage from +the authorities, but they aren't permitting any women and children to +travel on the river now. We want you to stay here with us, and when +Bob does come we'll have the wedding in Shanghai. Mrs. Jackson and I +were forced to leave our station a month ago, and we've taken the +house of some friends who are in England on leave. You'll be quite +comfortable with us, and it will give you a little time to adjust +yourself to the conditions here. I see Mrs. Jackson now, standing on +the jetty. See, the one with the green umbrella. She will be mighty +glad to have you with us. She has lived for so long where there are +very few white ladies." + +After all there was nothing to do but go with the Jacksons, but Megan +was not so deeply disappointed as her first fright had led Mr. +Jackson to suppose. She could not explain to him what she had never +fully admitted to herself, that she had come as much for China as for +Bob. + +Megan had not looked to Mr. Jackson, and she would scarcely have +looked to any one, the sort of girl who would become the wife of a +medical missionary in China. She had been born and brought up in a +small New England college town, but she had had winters in Boston and +several trips to Europe, and because her father was for many years +the president of the college she was used to a society of comfortable +means and a most determined intellectuality. Bob lived in the same +town, the son of an Episcopal rector with a large family. They had +known each other always, gone to dancing class, picnics together, +been completely indifferent companions, until quite suddenly, when +she was seventeen, Megan fell in love with Bob, that is to say, she +decided to focus on him all the ardors and enthusiasms, all the +capacity for dreaming and questioning, of which she was capable. It +was a secret passion of course and not a little desperate, because +she knew with that part of her which in every sane person, and even +in the young, remains the onlooker, that no one would take her +seriously, least of all Bob, who was a good-looking young man, an +excellent athlete, but full of common sense. And Megan did not +really want Bob to be conscious of what she felt for him. She never +wanted to realize him in an actual world in any rôle that he would be +likely to play; it was enough for her to dance with him sometimes in +a tense and beatific silence and to write a great many poems which +she kept locked in a drawer in an envelope marked "in case of my +death, please destroy." + +Megan had been one of those dazzlingly beautiful children whom people +exclaim over as if they were deaf or insensible, so that even very +young she had been aware, as children of royal blood or great wealth +are aware, that she enjoyed some special privilege. And not alone +from the exclamations of the careless but from the attitude of her +parents did she divine this privilege. Her father would tear his +eyes from the pages of a book to look at her; he treated her with an +aloofness that had a touch of awe. Her mother's attempts to be +severe, to discipline, broke down always into endearments, so that +Megan lived with her in an excited atmosphere of fancied slights, +sulks, tears, kisses and passionate admiration. Megan was privately +considered by some older persons as a thoroughly detestable child +whose parents, and indeed most of the world, spoiled beyond reason, +and to these persons her screaming tantrums enjoyed an equal fame +with her beauty, but to most people this beauty had its usual happy +effect of minimizing her faults and enhancing her virtues. Scarcely +any one could fail to be touched when so brightly lovely a child was +willing to share her cake with another or tell the truth under stress. + +But as Megan grew older she began, by degrees but surely, to be a +little less beautiful, until by the time she was well in her teens +her beauty had left her entirely. This did not happen suddenly, and +she herself was slow to realize it because the attitude of people +toward her was so well established that it was slow to change. But +it did change. And once she overheard some one say: + +"Yes, that is Davis' daughter now; you would never think she was such +a ravishing child, would you?" + +Megan went home and saw in the glass the thin well-shaped body, the +rather hollow-cheeked face of a handsome girl, a girl with some of +that haggard Celtic look, together with the long upper lip, the +rather blunted Celtic nose, the eyes greenish gray, brilliant and +black-lashed, but she saw that of the intangible and extraordinary +Celtic bloom nothing remained. She saw also that she had lost her +kingdom. + +Of course this loss, as in her love for Bob, would mean practically +nothing to any one else, not even to her parents, and the realization +only added to her bitterness and resentment. The callousness of the +world to the greater part of human suffering struck her for the first +time. But there was nothing to be done about that and she herself +remained profoundly indifferent to all the hidden sources of grief +that people around her concealed daily. She cultivated the belief +that the beauty of the world is always in some sense marred, that we +must all expect to lose what we most cling to, and therefore that it +is our own fault if we let ourselves in for disappointment. For a +year or so Megan constrained herself into the pattern of the cynic, +astounding when she could by bitter speeches and pleased only when +she created a flutter of alarm. Then at the moment when she felt she +had established the fact that she had nothing to live for, Bob, who +had come back from two years as interne in a Boston hospital, made +two astonishing statements: one that he was going out to China as a +medical missionary and the other that he loved her and wanted to +marry her. + +The young cynic vanished as quickly as she had come. The sterility +of that attitude had always repelled her, even while she had taken a +perverse enjoyment in its repellent effect on others. She now +unconditionally renounced it. Bob was in love with her. They would +be married as soon as he was settled in China and was able to send +for her. Megan underwent one of those irrational and complete +changes that happiness will produce in nearly any one. She was +herself astonished at the change. She not only loved Bob, but some +emotion had been released in her which welled up irresistibly and for +which Bob alone was not enough. Up to now she had treated her +religious beliefs with some indifference, sometimes with scorn, but +Bob's orthodoxy, his desire to serve, seemed to her now to have the +only beauty and dignity. She was going to be a part of his life, +which was a life for the relief of suffering. Her part would be to +bring happiness. All the misery of humanity, by which she had been +only vaguely irritated when she felt herself to be a part of it, she +now looked on with the sensations of a man cured of a disease who is +impelled to testify to the remedy before others. She knew that no +one should be unhappy, that evil, sickness, poverty, injustice, all +demanded one treatment. No man would be unhappy if love for his +fellow man filled his heart. During the time before Bob left for +China Megan lived in a period of exultant joyousness. There were no +problems, there was nothing that was not fundamentally right. She +even looked at herself in the glass. She was no longer beautiful. +Good. She instantly accepted humility, and she discovered that even +humility may always be accepted by the proud when it is acknowledged +to be a grace and ornament of the spirit. + +Bob went to China and was not able to send for her as soon as they +had both expected. A long summer dragged past and autumn came. +Megan, still happy but a little less exultant, tried to do settlement +work in the small city where she lived, a city where the prosperity +of the inhabitants made such work among them so difficult, so +desultory, that she gave it up. In the early winter she went to a +hospital in Boston as a probationer. But she was not a success. The +external ugliness of the life depressed her, and her imaginative pity +for the worst cases, added to an irresistible physical disgust, was +such that she became fumbling and even absent as to detail. The +patients themselves did not like to have her about. This discouraged +her, and when her mother on a visit found her more than ordinarily +hollow-cheeked, with eyes over-brilliant from strain, she promptly +took her home. So a gradual depression began to settle over her. +Her impulses did not change but there was no outlet for them. She +thought a great deal of China. She read Bob's letters over and over +and out of their bare words extracted gradually a vision of China's +wretchedness and beauty. China and Bob both needed her, but Bob was +now an accepted fact, dear, a part almost of herself, while China was +unknown; it put no limits on her imagination. And China held the +greater magic. + +Then in January came a letter saying that conditions in China had +grown suddenly worse; Bob gave them details that at this distance +lost their significance. The British at Hankow, the Nationalists, +Russian influence, all this meant nothing. Still, Megan's parents +were worried. It did mean another delay. As they sat about +together, Megan reading parts of the letter aloud, she suddenly felt +that another crisis had come to her, like that one when she looked in +the mirror and for the first time saw there a long pale face that was +her own. If she could not get to China now, and to Bob, it seemed +that something terrible and definite would happen to her. She did +not define it, but it seemed vaguely to take the character of a loss +of faith. It cast her into a panic. Looking up she saw her father +and mother watching her with a common expression of anxiety on their +faces. She knew by instinct that some peculiar quality of their love +for her made them vulnerable, in a way that she was not, and +abruptly, without reasoning, she stormed over their weakness. She +burst into tears. + +"But I've got to go," she cried. "I can't stand these +disappointments any longer, I've got to go." + +And as she knew at once, even without looking at them, that she had +won, a feeling of release streamed over her. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter III headpiece] + +CHAPTER III + +When the Jacksons returned for tea she told them all about the +wrecked car, which they said they had seen as they came in, and +particularly about the extreme callousness of the owner of the car. +Mr. Jackson did not seem to think that was anything out of the +ordinary. + +"It was probably some rich man taking refuge in the Concession," he +said. "They tell me the Cantonese are at Sunkiang, only about thirty +miles away. Lots of Chinese are making for the Settlement." + +Mrs. Jackson held her cup in one hand and the _North China Daily +News_ in the other. She read: + +"'Over a hundred executions of Communist sympathizers took place +yesterday and the heads of some of the more prominent agitators were +put in cages over the gates of the native city.' That ought to be a +lesson to them. Will, why don't you go and take snap-shots of them +to send home?" + +Megan involuntarily raised her eyebrows and Mrs. Jackson saw her. + +"But it does them good to see what goes on out here! They ought to +see it with their own eyes. Why, I've seen plenty of executions at +Shasi, and sometimes they hung them alive in chains on the city wall. +And I'll never forget seeing heads there one rainy evening with birds +pecking at them. Yes, it would do them good to realize some of this +at home. No one knows what we go through out here. It is the +fashion nowadays to accept everything, but it is a whole lot easier +to accept things at a distance than close by. And the only way to +accept calmly what happens in China is to stay at home and believe +nothing any one tells you." + +"It is the only way, my dear, to maintain any pleasant international +relations." + +Mr. Jackson smiled under his long mustache at Megan as he spoke. +Megan did not have a very keen sense of humor, and unlike most people +who lack it she knew that she lacked it. She considered it the +refuge of those who dare not look facts in the face, but she saw that +Mr. Jackson possessed a sense of fun arising from fundamental good +temper, which he took to be humor, and it was a great comfort to him. +As a boy she was sure he had put wet newspapers in the beds of his +school fellows, and still remembered it with a wistful smile. + +"Besides," he said, "you mustn't try to frighten Miss Davis." + +"I'm not being frightened. I want to know what is actually +happening. Whatever it is I want to know." + +Mrs. Jackson returned to the _North China Daily News_, which she laid +on the arm of a chair while she buttered a scone. + +"'It is rumored,'" she read, "'that General Yen Tso-Chong is in +Shanghai in one of the Chinese hotels of the French Concession. Not +long ago the General successfully completed negotiations with the +Nationalists which resulted in the turning over of his province with +practically no shedding of blood. The General has a well-organized +army and maintains an arsenal under the management of a European, +which turns out among other things a trench mortar said to be the +equal of any. His province is one of the most prosperous in China. +He is particularly able and astute, and despite his unfriendliness to +the Hankow faction (his own capital has lately been the scene of +numerous Communist executions) he is regarded by many as one of the +coming leaders of the Nationalists, among whom he represents the more +sane and anti-Bolshevist element. The purpose of his alleged +presence in Shanghai, at a time when it is held by the troops of the +Northern party, is unknown.' Will, isn't that Doctor Strike's +General? But of course it is. Yen Tso-Chong, that is the name. He +is the one who turned the Doctor out of his college." + +"Doctor Strike," explained Mr. Jackson, "is a very good friend of +ours. He is a very learned man, belongs to all sorts of scientific +societies and is a great Chinese scholar. He has written a textbook +on the Chinese language and translated the Odes. Besides that he is +a man of amazing power, spiritual and physical as well, though he is +not as strong as he used to be. His life of labor is beginning to +tell on him." + +"Is the Doctor in town?" asked Mrs. Jackson. + +"I don't believe he is in town. He was to get in touch with me as +soon as he got back. Yes, General Yen must be the Doctor's erstwhile +friend. I believe he did use to think very highly of the General, +who they say is a well-educated, intelligent man. He didn't seem to +change his mind about the General even when he turned him out of his +college. But the Doctor isn't one to give up hope of a man easily, +not when he has set himself to save him." + +"They say the General is very dissolute in his private life," said +Mrs. Jackson. "I am surprised the Doctor would overlook that. They +say he never travels without special trains for his concubines, and +when you read in the French papers (they publish such things) that +his concubines are sent away from a city, it means that city is about +to fall." + +"Is a Chinese dissolute because he has concubines?" asked Megan. + +"He isn't considered so by the Chinese. But then that really isn't +the point, is it? We have to apply our standard to them, don't we, +and make them accept it?" + +Megan sipped her tea and considered this last remark, coming so +flatly from the apologetic little Mr. Jackson. It is always so easy +to mock at intolerance because quite naturally each one of us would +prefer to be treated with tolerance. In fact, we much prefer +tolerance to mercy. Mercy is forced to recognize that justice +exists; tolerance is indifferent to it. As to Mr. Jackson's +statement, obviously they were here to enlighten China. To assume +the apologetic attitude, the humorous, the tolerant attitude, would +in his case be merely a flabby cowardice. + +"Of course, that is what we are here for," she repeated staunchly, +feeling however that she had not entirely clarified the issue in her +mind. + +Mrs. Jackson complained of a headache and took the paper over to a +sofa, on which she took a slightly reclining attitude. + +"Will, do you remember Mrs. Walsh's headaches?" she said. "Well, do +you know how she finally cured them? She knew an old country woman +back in Wales who kept a special flock of sheep and a special bed of +saffron. I can't remember what this old woman did, but it seems she +gathered this saffron, and then sheared the sheep from whatever part +of the sheep you had the pain, all at a certain period of the moon. +Then she tied this wool around the saffron and sent it to you. Well, +Mrs. Walsh got some from the sheep's head and she has never had a +headache since. I wanted to send for some myself," she turned to +Megan, "but Mr. Jackson wouldn't hear of it. Of course he was right, +but I still have headaches." + +Mr. Jackson was worried that this story had been told before Megan. +He looked at her a little anxiously as he said to his wife: + +"It would have been an outrage for a woman of your training to +consider such a thing. If I were you I wouldn't think anything more +about it." + +"I'm not thinking about it, I only said I still have headaches." + +"I'd rather you had a headache than indulge in a gross superstition." + +"Yes, I'm sure you would," said Mrs. Jackson, "but then of course, it +is my headache." + +Megan had finished her tea and had just lighted a cigarette. As she +blew the first smoke through her lips, she was reminded of the tea +hour at home, and the cigarettes she and her father enjoyed together +when he came in from his study, tired and sometimes harassed. She +was not listening very intently to the rather involved conversation, +except to say to herself that Mrs. Jackson was displaying +considerable skill in muddling things, when she noticed they had both +stopped and were looking at her. They seemed a little embarrassed, +as simple people are when what they consider an impropriety has been +committed in their presence. In the place where there were so few +white ladies it had evidently not been brought to their notice that a +lady could smoke a cigarette. Because she was their guest Megan +crushed it out on the rim of her cup, but she was annoyed with them +nevertheless; it seemed to her they carried intolerance a little too +far. + +"Did you have a nice afternoon?" she asked. + +"Well, we had a rather trying one," said Mr. Jackson. "We were +obliged to go way over to Chapei to see about a friend of ours, a +Miss Reed, who is in charge of St. Andrews Orphanage. She has a +number of Chinese Christian orphans and some little Russians. There +were two ladies helping her, a Miss Minton and Miss Soames. Miss +Soames has appendicitis and is in the Shanghai General Hospital (that +reminds me, dear, we ought to go there to-morrow). You see, Chapei +is Chinese territory and a very rough section; lots of workers in the +mills live there, and it has always been very labor-ridden. We tried +this afternoon to get Miss Reed to move into the Settlement, but she +couldn't be persuaded it was necessary." + +"Persuaded!" exclaimed Mrs. Jackson. "You couldn't persuade that +woman. It is a pity, I think, to feel you know everything in this +world." + +"Well, dear, I shouldn't say her disagreeing with me constituted a +claim for universal knowledge. Should you, Miss Davis?" + +He smiled again under his long mustache, and Megan smiled back at +him. She felt sure he had had a hard afternoon with Miss Reed. + +"Is the orphanage in any real danger, do you think?" she asked. + +"It is hard to say, but it very well may be. There seems to be no +doubt that the Chinese will take Shanghai. The Concessions are too +well defended to be harmed. That is, they are now. If this were +happening two months ago it would be a different story. But I feel +sure it will go hard in the Chinese city and the outlying districts. +If Miss Reed and her orphanage were in my charge, I'd order her to +leave." + +"I wonder why she won't come." + +"She won't come," said Mrs. Jackson, "because people have told her it +is unsafe and she loves to disagree with them. She loves nothing +better than being in danger and then saying, 'Oh, it was nothing, it +was nothing really.'" + +"My dear, you must not be so bitter and critical. Miss Reed is a +good woman." + +"Well, so am I a good woman," said Mrs. Jackson emphatically, and Mr. +Jackson said nothing but sighed and twisted a little sadly the +drooping ends of his mustache. + +"Besides," said Mrs. Jackson, "I don't see why you insist she is as +good as all that. She loves making herself and every one around her +miserable. She has put herself and another lady and a lot of +children in danger of their lives and she puts you to no end of +trouble." + +"Oh, come, come," said Mr. Jackson, and he went over to his wife, +awkwardly patting her shoulder. "Suppose I get you an aspirin," he +said. + +The classification of a good woman, surely a classification that was +now fairly obsolete anyway, disturbed Megan, but she knew he meant it +only as testifying that Miss Reed was unquestionably physically pure. +She thought perversely of the concubines of General Yen Tso-Chong and +wondered if intolerance sometimes fails because even though honorable +and vigorous it can often overlook an essential point. Miss Reed +made every one miserable. Perhaps the concubines did not. What was +the essential point? Megan gave it up. + +After dinner Megan went to her room early, and read in bed for some +time. She had a book of Papini, Perugia's _Peintres Chinois_, and an +old book on Jesuit missions in China and Japan full of old +engravings. But she could not concentrate on any of them. She wrote +a long letter to Bob telling him of her arrival, of the Jacksons, of +the episode of the wrecked car. Then she turned off her light. Her +open window now was only a square in darkness but it brought her the +odor of the night. She wondered if there could really be a +difference between this smell and that of rainy nights at home; this +too was herby and clear, a new smell, but into the room crept a +strong under-taint of fertilizer suggesting sickness and age. It +came somewhere from the great plain beginning outside her window, a +plain that has supported life for such countless ages one wonders it +has any power left to force out a single fresh shoot. Megan, already +tired, felt the oppression of such a burden; on her relaxing +consciousness the sheer immobility of it pressed heavily, pierced +through now by the young, quickening jets of rain. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter IV headpiece] + +CHAPTER IV + +The next morning early Megan went to her window. The rain had +momentarily stopped, but the sky was gray and low and it would surely +rain again. Along the muddy road passed the Chinese, pushing heavily +laden wheelbarrows or sitting in rickshaws holding bundles bigger +than themselves on their laps. Even motor-cars were bulging with +mattresses, sewing-machines, stoves, all those possessions which are +accepted without thought but which when dragged out of the houses +where they belong give such a pitiful exposure of the actual +simplicity of our needs. Mr. Jackson was right; the rush for the +Settlement had begun. + +It was Sunday. After breakfast they rode to church in rickshaws, +with the hoods up and leather aprons fastened across them by +patched-up loops of string. It was raining a little. Megan had +never been in a rickshaw before and she did not feel the horror she +had anticipated at being pulled along by a human being. The coolie +had muscled bare legs and he swayed from side to side with a faint +trace of swagger; the odor of garlic he had been eating came cheerily +back to her. There was something about the equipage, disreputable as +it was, that gave her a feeling of pomp and circumstance not entirely +unpleasant. + +They passed the entrance to the Avenue Joffre, going along the road +edging the Settlement, to the Avenue Haig. On their left heavy coils +of barbed wire shut out a few mean Chinese houses, a large Chinese +building behind a brick wall, with an institutional look about it, +farther on making a barrier to dreamlike vistas of water-soaked +fields, canals, and low Chinese farmhouses with roofs horned like the +new moon. They turned to the right at the side of a large +riding-school with paddocks and an enclosed ring. A huge tow-haired +Russian groom was leading a horse from the ring. + +The church was bare. Only Europeans were there, and they got up, sat +down, made the responses with what seemed a determination wearier but +more dogged than it would have been at home. + +"'Let me never be confounded," sang the choirboys in their white, +reedy voices. + +In the afternoon Mr. Jackson went off to try to persuade Miss Reed +for the last time to evacuate the orphanage. Mrs. Jackson expressed +the belief that he would not succeed. + +"I wish Doctor Strike were here," she said to Megan. "He could make +her do it. But Will never can; he is afraid of her." + +She added that Doctor Strike might be expected at any moment now, and +every time the telephone or the door-bell rang she said, "That is +probably the Doctor now." But he did not come. + +The afternoon passed interminably to Megan. She longed to be out +helping Mr. Jackson evacuate the orphanage. She envied Miss Reed, +who at least was in the midst of the storm. It was so hard sitting +still and watching Mrs. Jackson knit, trying to talk to her. After +she had shown Mrs. Jackson her trousseau, which Mrs. Jackson +evidently found much too plain, and had answered a few questions of +"what they wore" at home, they really had nothing to say to each +other. Toward the one subject on which Megan tried to draw her out +Mrs. Jackson maintained an evasiveness that had a flavor of positive +resistance. In her rambling sentences she would sometimes mention +casually and without explanation, as if every one must have heard of +them, such persons as Doctor Strike, Mrs. Walsh at the Socony +Installation, Miss Reed, her amah who was devoted to her, but she +could not be induced to talk about China. She had not a trace of +intellectual curiosity. If there were things in the world mysterious +and a little terrifying, she would refuse to be either mystified or +terrified, she would blank them off. And China she ignored as if it +had been an obscene fact of life, like sex. Megan tried to imagine +her sitting for the last twenty years in a Chinese house, eating +Chinese food, speaking Chinese and ignoring China. + +Seeing Megan was restless, Mrs. Jackson asked her if she cared about +reading, and when Megan answered that she did, Mrs. Jackson went +up-stairs and returned with a book. + +"I find this very helpful," she said, handing it to Megan. + +It was a small, thin volume printed in 1884 by some mission press in +Calcutta and it was called _A Noble Life_. Megan looked through its +yellow pages and saw it was an account of the life of Archibald +Alexander McPherson, who left the British army to engage in mission +work in India. As Megan read here and there to see if she might +discover what had been the force that had driven him to do this, she +came on sentences like these: + + + "He became more and more sensitive to sin. On one occasion he + corrected his native boy for some fault with more sharpness than + he afterwards deemed necessary and when he became convinced that + he had given away, even in a slight degree, to anger, he called + his servant and falling on his knees begged his forgiveness with + tears of contrition." + + +Megan looked up at Mrs. Jackson with astonishment. She now pictured +her on her knees before the number one boy, begging his forgiveness +with tears of contrition. And even Megan smiled. Mrs. Jackson and +Archibald Alexander McPherson both had a knowledge, perhaps equally +unerring, of their own needs, and Mrs. Jackson was not to be diverted +by any pleasing fantasies she might profess; she remained untroubled +by such mystic pressures as tormented Archibald Alexander McPherson. + +As Megan sat pretending to read, the telephone rang again. It turned +out to be a young naval officer she had met on the boat whose name +was Bates. He wished to take her to dinner. She had not +particularly liked him but after a slight hesitation said yes. She +explained him to Mrs. Jackson as a pleasant sort of fellow who had +come out to command a gunboat and would leave the next day for +up-river. Mrs. Jackson did not understand why an engaged girl wanted +to dine with another man, especially on Sunday. + +"I'm really not endangering my future happiness. And certainly I +ought to begin to know something of China." + +"I don't think the wife of a mission worker needs to know the China +that a gunboat commander is going to show her." + +"Are they so dreadful?" asked Megan, smiling. + +"I think they're pretty loose in their morals, though there was a +nice one evacuated us out of Shasi." + +Lieutenant-Commander Bates took her first to the Palace, where they +could sit and watch the lights of the war-ships anchored along the +Bund,--English, French, Dutch, Italian, Japanese and American. Megan +looked at the American cruiser with pride. More than any of the +others, of course, it contained steel, discipline, honor, handsome +men and sudden death. + +"Have a cocktail," said Bates. + +"Thanks, I believe I'll have a glass of sherry." + +"Better have a cocktail. I knew by your voice over the telephone +that you thought you should not come. I see by your face you wish +now you hadn't. Suppose you be as reckless as you can and I'll be as +careful as I can and perhaps we'll strike a mean." + +Megan was regretting she had come; in saying yes she had been +headlong, thinking only of a momentary escape from the dear Jacksons, +forgetting that she might find Bates' society infinitely more trying. +She was so stiff and formal that Bates himself began to have regrets. +He said to himself that she would be completely wet, and to brighten +up the prospect a bit he drank three Martinis. + +They started for a place some one had assured him was amusing. Megan +wanted to ride in a rickshaw so they ambled up Nanking Road in the +rain, a European street of European shops, harshly lighted, with +glimpses down narrow side-streets of more diffused lights and +fluttering banners. Farther along the shops became all Chinese and +suddenly the street was a blaze of lighted turrets and towers. On +Bubbling Well Road opposite the dark emptiness of the Race Course +they found the place they were looking for. + +In the cloak-room a flock of Chinese women fluttered about her. They +wore evening coats with great ruches about the necks and underneath a +hybrid garment, half of Europe, half of Asia, the costume of the +treaty port, a long coat dress with a stiff high collar. They were +thin, fleshless, with the bones of birds, their lacquered hair cut +short like men's, their skins seeming without pores, _mat_, +delicately yellow. Some had brought small children, dressed and +painted as miniatures of themselves. In the café they sat about in +chattering groups, and when the music began they fox-trotted and +Charlestoned with Chinese men in evening clothes or long skirts. +There were an equal number of Europeans about and the place was full +of smoke and jazz tunes. Down a long stairway at one end some +Russian Jewish strong men, coated with liquid powder and draped in +leopard skins, postured under a white spot-light. Bates found a +table, and Megan resigned herself to enduring Bates and the jazz and +the Jewish strong men. It was the things which made it like a dinner +at home she found hard to endure. But there was so much noise they +did not have to talk much, and a certain amount of time was passed in +dancing. + +Bates said: "We'll see nothing like this up-river, better enjoy +ourselves while we can." For Bates considered them fellow victims. +"What do you suppose your missionary crowd would think of this place?" + +"I suppose they'd be shocked. They are not out here for this, you +know." + +"I'm willing to believe that. I'm very broadminded myself, but I +don't see where their jobs would be if there weren't things to shock +them going on. You really have to look at that side of it, don't +you?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"You do now. Then there is this side of it: why don't they turn to +on some of the white population, do a bit for the Russkys, say? +There are thousands and thousands of them here, all out of work and +selling themselves and what-not. Look at that one over there for +instance, rather easy to look at and undoubtedly on the road to +Gehenna." + +There were plenty of Russian faces, but the girl Bates meant sat by +herself at a table near them, getting up every now and then to dance +with whoever asked her. The men who came over to her from other +tables were in general as self-conscious as though they had been +asked to go up on the stage and help a conjurer, but the girl was +somber and half asleep with exhaustion. She was overly buxom, +dressed in a too thin, soiled, flowered chiffon dress. Her hands +were dirty, but her eyebrows met in an exquisite scimitar arch over +black eyes like those in Persian miniatures. Her head was beautiful +in a way that was almost an affront, cruel and Semitic. Bates did +not really admire her, he was accustomed to prettiness groomed and +moderated; she was beauty in the raw. Still she disturbed him and he +went on looking at her. Megan's mind flashed back momentarily to the +Chinese woman she had seen in the car with the chenille fringes, the +car that had stopped at the scene of the motor wreck. She remembered +against the Russian woman's look of submerged revolt the Chinese +woman's air of modesty and complete acceptance of living. + +"That girl is too fat but she has got a good nose," Bates continued. +"That is what is the matter with these Chinese women. No noses." + +"They have rather Egyptian noses, haven't they? And they are rather +alike, come to think of it, both agriculturalists for thousands of +years and peace-loving. I suppose it is natural for an +agriculturalist to be peace-loving. But can there be any connection, +do you suppose, between agriculture and noses?" + +"Well, I'm not prepared to say. Let's dance. You wouldn't think," +he said as they worked through the crush, "that this city is going to +be captured in a few days, would you?" + +"But is it? And will it make a great difference?" + +"Bound to be. And it will make plenty of difference to the Chinks. +Don't you worry though. We're looking after the Concessions. You +can give us credit for that, noses or no noses." + +The evening stretched in front of her like a tunnel. The continuous +blare of sound, the smoke, and across from her the fatigue and scorn +of the Russian woman, who never ceased to dance with whoever asked +her and to say at intervals, "One small bottle wine, please,"--these +things became insupportable. Feeling that it must be nearly morning +she stole a glance at her wrist-watch and found it was only quarter +past twelve. + +"I must go now. The Jacksons will worry if I am out late." + +"Good girl. Must get good girls home early. Boy, bring chit." + +But he had time to consume another whisky soda. He was becoming +agreeably boisterous, he laughed at everything she said. + +"Perhaps after all I'll have a chance to sack a city. Can you see me +doing it? Can you see me tearing jade earrings off the shrieking +women? Can you?" + +"No, I can only imagine you rescuing them in the orthodox manner." +But the truth was she did not want to imagine Bates in China at all, +and it was a matter of complete indifference to her what he did or +did not do. + +In the lobby he tried to persuade her to go on to some other place +with him. There was a Russian club just outside the Settlement where +they had real vodka and served the meat on a bayonet, and another +place where they had a roulette wheel. + +He was like a child in his desire for entertainment and in his +dependence on some one else for it. He was even dependent on Megan +now that they had had dinner and a few drinks together. But she +would not stay. + +When he deposited her at the house she found Mrs. Jackson sitting up +for her. + +"Did you have a nice time?" she asked. + +Megan admitted that she wished she had not gone. + +In her own room she decided to have a bath and turned on the water so +that the little bathroom was a cage of steam. She had an idea of +washing away the unpleasant impression the evening had left with her, +but in the tub she felt more depressed than ever. Clothes are more +of a protection to us than we realize until we take them off. When +we take off our clothes we take away at the same time all the +evidences of the rôle we have chosen; we are very apt to lose our +dignity and even our purpose, and for the moment to sink tack into an +indistinguishable humanity. Megan lay in the warm water feeling that +this poor stripped creature that was herself was not worthy of her +vocation. + +In her bed she propped up the pillows and picking up the account of +the early Jesuit Missions ruffled the pages back and forth, thinking +of the view she had just had of the European excrescence on China. +It was obvious that white Shanghai must be chiefly composed of homes +full of honest citizens like any other city, like Indianapolis, like +Dijon, like Brighton, probably as nearly like them as it could +possibly be made. But the dulness of the entertainment she had taken +part in was doubly dull, seen as a transplanted thing, just as the +stoves and sewing-machines of the refugees had seemed particularly +pitiful as things one felt compelled to drag with one from place to +place. + +Megan lay looking idly at the frontispiece which gradually caught her +attention. It was an old steel engraving of a Jesuit church in a +Chinese city the name of which was unfamiliar to her. All round the +church were curving Chinese roofs, laden with preposterous porcelain +figures, over garden walls sprouted fantasies of unknown trees and +before it were set small swarming figures of coolies bearing yokes, +beggars with their bowls, ladies with parasols, and the sedan-chairs +of the rich. In the midst of all this, the Jesuit church lifted its +flat façade, broken half-way by two orderly volutes, with +half-dimensional, twisted pillars on either side of its doors. The +suggestion of the grandiose and the gigantic was discreetly tempered +by reflections of logic, of Aristotle and the sciences, and the +inappropriateness of the whole to its surroundings lent it a +delicious perversity and charm. A Jesuit façade in China. The first +small wedge in the breach which was to grow wider and wider till all +Europe poured in, no longer, alas, the Europe of amiable sophistries +and the art of making clocks, but a vast and terrible lava flow of +artillery, transportation, oil, steel-girded buildings, sanitation, +jazz, democracy, equality of the sexes, business efficiency and the +true word of God. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter V headpiece] + +CHAPTER V + +On one of those blue and white days that sometimes come as a +voluptuous relief in the midst of rain, and at about noon, the city +was taken. Mrs. Jackson and Megan spent the morning in small shops +along the Rue du Consulat looking for jade to send to Megan's mother. +The small streets running between the Rue du Consulat and the Rue des +Deux Republiques, which is Chinese territory, ended in grilles, and +they were further guarded by barbed-wire entanglements and +chevaux-de-frise. At intervals along the Rue du Consulat were +redoubts of sand-bags guarded by French Marines, and as Megan and +Mrs. Jackson walked along the sidewalks crowded with Chinese, they +passed, every hundred yards or so, groups of Annamites under French +officers slowly patrolling. Among the usual flutter of banners, red, +white and yellow outside the shops, were a great number of +Nationalist flags, red with a white sun on a blue field. + +"See," said Mrs. Jackson, pointing to them, "they know the city is +going to fall and they have turned already." + +But they themselves did not know it had fallen until they reached +home about noon to find the telephone ringing. Mr. Jackson was +calling. + +"The Cantonese have taken over the Native City and the railroad +station," he said. "I think you had better stay indoors until we see +if anything further is going to happen." + +Megan thought there must be some mistake. + +"But do cities fall like this?" she asked. "I have not even heard a +shot." + +Mrs. Jackson said: "Now I guess Miss Reed will be sorry she did not +move out of Chapei." + +"Maybe she was right after all and there is no danger." + +"We'll see," said Mrs. Jackson. + +When Mr. Jackson came in a half-hour later he brought Doctor Strike, +whom he had met in the city. They all had a late tiffin together. +The windows were open and sunlight poured in with a spring odor of +flowering bulbs in the garden. They could hear the rumble of heavy +trucks passing and once firing a long way off. Doctor Strike said: + +"When I was on the Bund they were firing on the Pootung side, but you +couldn't hear it here." + +He was a tall gaunt man almost entirely bald, with a salient jaw and +fine large mouth; his pale eyes under bushy brows burned with such +intensity that he himself seemed to realize their gaze would be +difficult to bear and let them only flicker over those he looked at. +As soon as he came into the room Megan felt that here was a man of a +totally different caliber from the Jacksons. There was something +restless, fluid and molten about him, that one felt even under his +quiet voice and rather laboring speech. Megan wondered if it was +because he was a great Chinese scholar that he spoke English +laboriously, used it as if it were a not too familiar vehicle, +hesitating over some words and then bringing them out with a sudden +impatience. + +After they had talked for a while Megan asked him about his work at +the Christian College in the capital of the province of which General +Yen Tso-Chong was military governor. + +"I was president of the college a great many years," he said, "and +certainly they were the best years of my life. It is a lovely city, +Miss Davis, a capital of old China, classical China. I wish you +might see it. But it is impossible now, every one has cleared out; I +don't believe there is a white man there. In my time there were a +hundred or so, not counting those of us out at the college. Yes, it +was a wonderful time. I had fine young men to work with, the best +type of Chinese. Among them was General Yen, not a general then of +course, but a brilliant youngster, already a Chinese scholar, and +coming from one of the old Mandarin families of the province. I was +very attached to him. When he left me he went to Europe for a few +years and when he came back I still saw him, but of course not so +much. He was interested in politics then and very occupied. He went +to Wampoa for some military training. We rather drifted apart, but I +always admired him and when he made himself tupan of the province I +believed it was the best thing that could have happened. I had +confidence in him. I knew there would be certain traditional things +he would do that would be wrong, but I hoped for others, for an +increasing number of others, that would be right." Doctor Strike +flashed his eyes absently over them all for a moment, then looked +down at his plate. + +"It is hard to tell when things first began to go wrong," he said, +"but it came about slowly and surely. All this political unrest to +begin with. Then the General, once the power was in his hands, began +to abuse it. He took over all the revenues of the province and gave +no accounting for them; he began to train large bodies of troops, +troops ha conscripted and paid off by loans from the local chambers +of commerce. I say 'loans' but of course they were actually levies +never meant to be paid. Then he stopped all the exportation of rice +(rice, you know, is one of the chief products of the province), and +made large sums out of kumshaw from the smugglers. Why, when I left +he had actually collected all the taxes of the province up to 1930! +Of course he did a few admirable things too. He kept strict order; +he made expenditures on public works. Certainly the roads were never +in better condition (he was fond of motoring), and unexpectedly he +even endowed a few charities here and there. Well, as I said, all +this happened gradually and in the meantime the political situation +grew more and more acute. The Cantonese, or Nationalists, as they +like to call themselves, were practically at his doors. It was about +then he told me he was obliged to put in a Chinese as president of +the college. He did not say who obliged him, but I got nothing out +of argument except that I might remain, because of his friendliness +to me, as adviser to the Board. Then he said the whole foreign staff +would have to leave to make way for Chinese instructors, the +instructors all men we had educated of course. So they left, but I +hung on. The man he had selected for president was a fine fellow, I +knew him well, I hoped to work through him, or at least to save our +property and all our gear for better days. But the General had no +intention of my remaining. He had just sold out to the Nationalists, +not from conviction but from pure political expediency. He saw they +would win anyway. He felt himself particularly strong, particularly +successful. He ordered me to leave. There was no getting around him +this time; I had to go. An armed guard escorted me to the train and +we parted," the Doctor smiled bitterly, "with all the flowery +speeches you could think of. And since then I have been waiting here +to see what happens." + +"Well, I'm surprised," said Mrs. Jackson. "I thought the General was +always a great admirer of yours." It seemed that Mrs. Jackson was +gratified by the General's defection, whether because of a natural +satisfaction in some one else's disappointment or because it +illustrated some conviction of her own that the Chinese could not be +depended upon. + +"I don't know," replied Strike. "Certainly I was once an admirer of +his." + +"Well, what do you suppose caused him to turn on you?" + +"Oh, I don't know," Doctor Strike spoke in a low voice, and there was +something painful to Megan about the puzzled, stilled look on his +face. The General's defection from such a man seemed to her +horrible. She wished Mrs. Jackson would leave Doctor Strike alone. +But suddenly he lifted his head and flashed a look around at all of +them. "It doesn't matter what he thinks about me," he said, "it +doesn't matter. I shall never give up hope of him. It is hard to +make clear to others on just what we rest some of our convictions. +They seem to rest on nothing tangible. Perhaps on instinct. Perhaps +they are a truth which we remember, though it was spoken to us when +we were unaware. I only know this, I shall never give up hope of the +General. I know that there is something fine in him, yes, and even +something superfine. It is as though under all the load of falseness +his spirit continually cried out to me, 'I'm here, I'm here, come and +find me.'" The Doctor stopped abruptly and looked down, both hands +clenched beside his plate. As Megan watched him he looked up again, +not seeing her, and suddenly his face was touched by a fluttering, +strange smile, as if before some more vivid memory of the General he +found himself once again charmed and dismayed and hopeful. + +"Where is General Yen now?" asked Mr. Jackson. "Mrs. Jackson was +reading in the paper that he had come to Shanghai." + +Doctor Strike spoke with an effort at casualness: + +"Has he? I don't know. He is probably with friends in the Chinese +city." + +Megan was annoyed with the Jacksons for continuing to talk about what +was obviously so poignant a thing to Doctor Strike, but Mr. Jackson +insisted: + +"He wouldn't have been safe in the Chinese city until to-day. If he +came while the Northerners had it he must have come incognito and +gone into the Settlement, or into the French Concession. You +probably know, Miss Davis, that the French have always kept their +Concession separate from the International Settlement here in +Shanghai. The paper said he had gone to a Chinese hotel in the +French Concession. Maybe he came to try to buy them out here." + +"Perhaps," said the Doctor shortly. + +They left the table and went back to the front room, where they could +see the road outside and the refugees who flowed past now as +inevitably as water down-hill. Against their steady stream the big +armored trucks loaded with Annamites in mushroom hats lunged their +way toward Siccawei. Doctor Strike watched them pass, never taking +his eyes from them, as he smoked his pipe by the window. And Megan +watched him, wondering how old he was, what his life had been, what +his thoughts now could be, and filled at the same time by a complete +satisfaction as though she had found something which she had felt all +along must exist. + +"Do you like the Chinese people, Doctor Strike?" she asked. + +He turned quickly and leveled his colorless, brilliant eyes on her. + +"But I love them!" he exclaimed. "Who would not? They are perhaps +the most tragic people that has ever lived. For hundreds of +centuries they have enjoyed the highest plane of living and thinking. +I doubt if even the Greeks ever perfected a more entirely civilized +being than a Chinese gentleman of the Tangs or of the Sungs, and yet +they have so far been permitted to be the victims of what seems the +most colossal irony. Like the Greeks they have been permitted to +miss persistently the one essential truth." + +"You mean the existence of God?" + +"Not the existence of God," cried the Doctor violently, "of any god, +a god of truth, of justice, of power, of wisdom. No, what would all +that mean, but the existence of a God of love?" + +His words had such a naked ring that Megan was momentarily abashed, +even while she more than ever admired him. + +Mrs. Jackson got up with some suggestion of hauteur to go up-stairs. +She was offended by an enthusiasm which she felt obscurely was a +reflection on her own value. + +"Well, I don't like them," she said coldly, pausing at the door, "and +I've lived among them for years too. But I've done what I could for +them, and I guess I've given the best of my life. Mr. Jackson and I +did a good work in Shasi." + +And she went out. + +Mr. Jackson spoke hastily and rather at random but with his +habitually good-humored intent. + +"I wish we had had a strong central authority in Hupeh like your +General Yen. Any strong hand is better than none. We were overrun +with bandits and deserters from both armies, and the lawlessness has +been such for years that there was practically nothing we could +accomplish. And I sometimes think," he added sadly, "that God's work +is accomplished better by a celibate, like yourself and, well, like +that French priest in Shasi, Father Roget, a great friend of ours. +He had a very humorous way about him, big and fat he was, with beard +and glasses. The Chinese like that. When we left we tried to get +him to come too, but he wouldn't. He was killed finally. Some +roughnecks tried to break into his church and when he tried to stop +them they killed him. But he was beloved for all that. I would have +liked to stay too, but of course I had Mrs. Jackson to think of. You +know, we thought for a time we weren't going to be able to make it. +We missed the gunboat that was to take all refugees away. We were +inland when it came, so when we reached Shasi we had to hide +forty-eight hours in a sampan in a crowd of other sampans till +luckily the gunboat came back for us." And Mr. Jackson looked +affectionately at the spot where his wife had vanished, "Brave little +woman," he said very low to himself. Then he pulled out his watch. +"Well, about time to go for Miss Reed now," he said briskly. There +seemed to be no doubt now Doctor Strike was here that they would get +Miss Reed. "We can put them in the two north rooms," he said. + +Megan did not listen to their plans for Miss Reed. She was thinking +of Mrs. Jackson waiting in the sampan for the gunboat they did not +know was coming back. No matter how vividly she could imagine what +Mrs. Jackson ought to have been thinking of in the sampan she felt +sure that in reality Mrs. Jackson's thoughts would always be to her +incalculable, and, it must be admitted, unimportant. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter VI headpiece] + +CHAPTER VI + +But when Doctor Strike and Mr. Jackson returned about six o'clock +they brought the disquieting news that they had been unable to get +into Chapei and to do so it would be necessary to get permits from so +many authorities, English, French and Chinese, that they would be +obliged to wait till the next morning. All evening they talked about +it off and on, and Megan saw it was greatly on their minds, though no +one seemed to think the orphanage was in any immediate danger. + +The next day was a typical one of the lower Yangtze Valley, an +enclosed day of gray, low-hung sky, rather warm. Doctor Strike and +Mr. Jackson left the house early. As they did not return or even +telephone at noon, Megan after tiffin persuaded Mrs. Jackson to go +into town with her. They walked down Nanking Road through dense +crowds. It was easy to see that something was hanging over the city; +the streets were thronged but the shops were empty, even the drums +beating and the screech of mechanical pianos in the cheaper shops +could not draw any one from the streets. Rickshaws passed, their air +of gliding swiftness an illusion created by the angle of the coolies' +bodies, and more coolies carried a heavy piano by on bamboo poles. +"He, ho, he, ho," they sang as sweat streamed into their eyes. Megan +stopped to watch the skirted Chinese dart through the crowds between +crossings. She saw that they never looked at what was coming toward +them but only at what had already passed. They were saved by auto +horns and shouts of coolies. At one crossing came an old man with a +venerable thin beard and a big blue smocked apron swinging from his +hips. As the Sikh policeman gave the signal for traffic to swoop +down once more upon him he stopped, held up one hand admonishingly +and looked about with an air of pained surprise. Then he sneezed +twice, and having done so, with dignity moved on. It became +difficult to move among so many people. + +"Let us go to the Astor for a cup of tea," suggested Megan. She was +touched to see by Mrs. Jackson's expression that she considered this +casual invitation an occasion of social importance and that in the +crowded lobby she lost her air of assurance and became suddenly a +timid, badly dressed woman, but one who is nevertheless enjoying +herself. They found a table wedged close to others where they could +see through a window the Soviet Consulate across the way and a corner +of the Garden Bridge. + +It was not five o'clock, yet because of the grayness the lights were +on. Three men and a woman sat at the table closest to them. They +were leaning forward and talking confidentially, but they had to +raise their voices. Their words came over the hum of the +tea-drinkers and the clink of crockery, and Megan, hearing them, +became gradually aware of their stinging, their fantastic +incredibility. + +"--spent bullet came into her room, right here. The clerk at the +desk just told me." + +"Who is she, do I know her?" + +"--they say the whole of Chapei is on fire now. You know what those +Chinese houses are. It is one fiery furnace." + +Mrs. Jackson and Megan looked quickly at each other. + +"--Yes, a shambles too. Full of cornered Northern troops, fighting +from house to house. They are so desperate they'll probably try to +break into the Settlement for safety." + +"--But the worst is those Russians. You know, White Russians in +Northern pay. They are in an armored car on a siding over by the +North Station, they are shelling everything around till their +ammunition gives out. They're doomed and they know it. What will +happen to them?" + +"I hate to think." + +Megan leaned toward Mrs. Jackson. + +"Do you hear what they say?" + +Mrs. Jackson nodded absently. + +Megan felt her heart beating faster. She could not drink her tea and +wondered how Mrs. Jackson could go on eating large cream cakes and +toast with jam. But war was a commonplace to Mrs. Jackson, while tea +in a hotel lobby was not. + +"Can't they do something about it?" Megan asked. + +"Oh, no, that is all Chinese territory." + +Megan took out her leather cigarette case and put it back again. + +"I see," said Mrs. Jackson, "they are wearing lots of red fox. And +it used to be so out of date. Isn't it funny how things always come +back?" + +And she continued to look around her with a politely furtive +greediness at this delightful world which she knew only too well she +would shortly have to leave. + +"Isn't that Mr. Jackson?" asked Megan. + +Mrs. Jackson turned. "Why, so it is." + +He was talking to a man who, Mrs. Jackson said, was one of the +American consuls. Presently he saw them, nodded absently, and in a +moment came over and joined them. His face was very flushed, his +eyes looked heavy. + +"Doctor Strike is still trying to get his pass," he told them. "He +has been trying all afternoon to reach General Hsu at the Nantao +Yamen. I don't know with what success. I advised him if that failed +to try to get hold of General Yen. You know, the paper said he was +somewhere in the French Concession. I have just been trying to get +the Orphanage by telephone but can't get it. The whole district is a +blaze of fire, it seems." + +"Well, you've done all you can. Sit down and have some tea." + +"Yes, do have some tea," said Megan. + +Mr. Jackson sat down heavily with a sigh. Megan poured him a strong +cup and he drank it without saying a word. Then he made an effort to +recover his cheerfulness. + +"Well, I've always been a little afraid of Miss Reed," he said; +"maybe the Cantonese will feel the same way." + +"It seems to me I smell smoke," said Megan. + +"You probably do. Chapei is not far." + +Megan looked out of the window. She could see the patrols on the +Garden Bridge, Spanish marines from the _Blas de Lezo_. In the +ballroom of the hotel the orchestra was tuning up for the tea dance +which began at five. + +"Do let us go and walk a little," she said. "If you are not too +tired, let us walk toward Chapei." + +Mr. Jackson thought they would not get very far, but he got up and +Mrs. Jackson reluctantly followed. + +They walked along North Szechuen Road. There were so many Chinese on +the sidewalks, they had to elbow their way through. The Chinese +stood about not moving, not even talking much. There was none of the +nervous activity of Nanking Road. They stood looking dully at the +passing motorcars, wheelbarrows, rickshaws, loaded with the refugees +pouring in from Chapei. Several stretchers passed, carried by +coolies. On one a Japanese child in a gaudy kimono lay face +downward, joggling helplessly. + +"Most of the Japanese live this way," Mr. Jackson called over his +shoulder. He walked ahead of them, elbowing his way along. "There +must be sniping going on." + +A Sikh stopped them and told them by signs that they could go no +farther. He held out his arms and made a pantomime of shooting. +"Click, click," he said, "plenty shoot." His face crinkled into +smiles, his eyes nearly shut, his teeth and tongue showed in the +midst of his handsome black beard; his smile was so infectious they +could not help smiling with him and liking him. They stood for a +moment, feeling friendly but not knowing what to do. + +Then the Sikh moved off and they turned up Range Road, a street of +red brick houses with small garden plots in front behind brick walls, +like a street in an English Midland town or in a London suburb. The +street was nearly empty and instead of sky a great cloud of smoke +rolled up from behind the roofs. There was an all-pervading acrid +smell of charred wood and burning paints and varnish. At the far end +was some sort of barricade with a few people standing before it. +They walked down toward it, wondering why the street was so empty and +hearing every now and then a soft spat on the walls of the opposite +side. + +Suddenly Megan almost tripped over a bundle that looked as if it +might have been dropped from a passing truck, and saw other bundles +lying about, gray, the color of the road itself. They were Northern +soldiers in gray woolen uniforms. One lay with his head hidden on +his arm as if asleep; another, his face turned toward the sky, was as +livid as though a green light had been turned on him, and still +another had his arms stretched out in an arrested, a histrionic +gesture of abandon. Megan noticed his hands, which were very plump +and delicate; they reminded her of the hands of the man in the +wrecked car. + +Mr. Jackson shook his head over them. + +"Poor fellows," he said, "they were trying to get in here to save +their skins." + +At the barricade a few British soldiers, Durhams, stood by a +machine-gun, and just outside, about fifty yards farther on, a +hundred or more Northern soldiers sat about on the ground, their arms +in a pile in front of them. Like school children they were waiting +to be told what to do next. But there was no one to tell them. A +few civilians, Japanese and European, had gathered around the +barricade, and a good-looking young Jew in riding clothes came up to +Mr. Jackson and began to tell him what had happened. + +"I came along just here like this and I say to myself, these boys are +going to make a rush for it. There were some on the roofs firing +into the street,--they are still there, better keep close to the +wall. They came in a rush, and they scared the daylights out of me, +I'll tell the world." But he moved on, leaving unexplained what a +young Jew in riding clothes, without a horse, was doing in that +galley. + +Mr. Jackson spoke to one of the young Durhams. The cornered Northern +troops had tried to break into the Settlement for safety, so they had +had to kill about sixteen of them. The rest had thrown down their +arms. He himself was nineteen years old and had never been under +fire before. His eyes were shining, his voice cracked a little, and +when a Japanese wishing to hear pushed too near him, he kicked him +violently away, not because he was brutal,--his face was that of a +good-tempered child,--but because he was excited into a state +bordering on exaltation. + +A car came along Range Road and with a sharp scream of brakes stopped +at the barricade. It carried a Japanese flag and Japanese Marines on +the running-board. A British car followed it. Three British +officers, among them General Duncan's Chief-of-Staff, got out and +walked through to where the Northern prisoners sat about waiting for +something to happen. Fifteen or twenty Sikhs on horseback trotted +along the road, at the end a magnificent one who rode thoughtfully, +stroking his gray beard, deep in contemplation of some private +matter, neither hurried nor indifferent but as obviously made for war +as the Chinese are for peace. An ambulance came with great honking, +for the road was becoming crowded. An army doctor and several +hospital corpsmen got out and bent over the bodies. Over one who was +alive they held a consultation. The Chief-of-Staff came back and +gave orders for the road to be cleared. The Durhams began to push +people along. + +As Megan turned, she saw one of the doctors light a cigarette and put +it in the mouth of the Chinese soldier. She held back long enough to +be sure that a faint breath of smoke drifted between his colorless +lips. She walked along content that at least one of these hunted +creatures had escaped, that in the midst of all this defeat she might +identify herself with one tangible victory. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter VII headpiece] + +CHAPTER VII + +When they reached the house it was seven o'clock. The house was +cold, for the coolies had let the fires die down, and when Mrs. +Jackson fussed about, spurring the boys to activity, she saw that +dinner had not even been started. + +"What is the matter with these boys!" Mrs. Jackson complained, but +she knew what was the matter. + +There was no word from Doctor Strike. + +Megan went to her room and sat down with a book. She was quite aware +that she was becoming overcharged; her hands trembled noticeably as +she turned the leaves, and with an instinct for preserving her +balance she tried to take her mind as far as possible from China by +reading a book that had nothing to do with it. But she could not. +She remained abnormally alert to all she had just seen. Finally she +left the book open on her lap and deliberately abandoned herself to +the barbaric images that filled her mind, letting them riot through +as they must, hoping when they had had their will for the power to +discipline them into some permanent understanding of them. What she +most clearly saw were the young Chinese soldiers tossed like +discarded bundles on the road, yet lying in dignity for all that. +Only man among animals, she thought, even among those most noble, has +any dignity in death; the rest become at once carrion. But Megan had +never in her hospital, nor again here, looked at a man just dead +without feeling that that which had just left him had been in its +essence truly august. The young Chinese soldiers were past help from +her, but there remained all of China and it could not be possible +that having reached China she should find herself thwarted as at +home. That almost desperate irritation which she felt before +obstacles began to take hold of her. She dropped her book and walked +over to her window, open now on darkness and rain and a few casual +lights. She thought of Miss Reed at the beleaguered orphanage in the +midst of Chapei. Miss Reed's ultimate desire, she was convinced, was +for martyrdom, and apparently she was about to attain it. A desire +so capable of definite realization was, she felt sure, rare. Miss +Reed was fortunate. And it came to her with a further irritation how +much her own desires still floated unharnessed and goalless, waiting +amid a confusion as of voices, beating of wings, sharp flashes, for +something they could take hold of and make their own. + +Mrs. Jackson called her from below and she ran down-stairs in great +haste because haste gave an illusion of direction. But she found it +difficult to eat, and Mr. Jackson also sat making scraping sounds +with his fork, eating nothing. His face was flushed and his eyes +were heavy. Mrs. Jackson, after watching him anxiously during the +meal, leaned over and felt his forehead. + +"Will," she exclaimed, "you have a fever!" She jumped up and ran to +the foot of the stairs, calling her amah to bring down the +thermometer. + +Mr. Jackson looked apologetically at Megan. + +"I got soaked to the skin yesterday and to-day, but I don't feel as +if I had a cold at all." But sitting foolishly with the thermometer +in his mouth, he admitted to pains in his head and back. + +"Does your chest hurt you?" demanded Mrs. Jackson. + +He said it did not. + +"Well, into bed you go. I am going to rub you with Vick's Salve and +give you a hot lemonade and some aspirin. And don't you stir till +they burn the roof over our heads. Mr. Jackson had pneumonia two +years ago at Shasi," she explained, "and it all came from not doing +as I said." + +"But, dear, I must stay up till Doctor Strike comes, or at any rate +till I have some word from him. He may need me." + +"When he comes I'll send him right up to you. But there won't be a +thing you can do, Will. The Doctor is never going to get a permit +from that man." + +"No, I'm afraid not," Mr. Jackson admitted sadly, and he suffered +himself to be led up to bed. + +Megan and Mrs. Jackson sat up a while. Several times the telephone +rang and Megan always ran to answer it herself. But it always proved +to be a Chinese who had got the wrong number. Even the exchange was +worse than usual that night. Doctor Strike did not come. Finally +they went to bed. + +Megan lay in bed knowing she would never be able to sleep. The rain +had stopped but moisture dripped off the eaves of the house and it +grew gradually colder so that she pulled a blanket over her. +Suddenly she heard what she knew to be firing. It came from +somewhere the other side of the International Settlement and it +sounded like a stick drawn rapidly along a picket fence. Megan got +up and ran to the window, but aside from the red glow in the +direction of Chapei there was nothing to be seen. The firing went on +but came no nearer. Then it stopped. Megan went back to bed. She +began to count sheep as her father had made her do as a child. +Sometimes when she had been sick or frightened he would sit by her +bed and count them for her. She made herself think of her father. +Then of Bob. Bob was as near to China as she would let herself +think. It was easier to picture Bob's fulfillment than her own. She +saw Bob's life as one long integrity in the midst of grossly +multiplied odds. She saw too, with some confusion of feeling, his +blue eyes. Dear Bob. And she did not know she had gone to sleep +until a bell jangled immoderately somewhere in the midst of her +unconsciousness. Before she knew what she was doing she had jumped +up and turned on the light. Her traveling clock said three-thirty. +The bell rang again and she heard one of the boys scuffling to the +door. As she dressed she heard the door open and Doctor Strike's +voice in the hall. Then she heard the voices of the Jacksons. But +while she listened there were no sounds that might be Miss Reed and +her orphans. + +When she got down-stairs she found Doctor Strike and the Jacksons in +the living-room before the fireplace, where the sleepy coolie was +laying a fresh fire. Mrs. Jackson wore one of Mr. Jackson's +overcoats, Mr. Jackson was wrapped in a blanket, Doctor Strike was +hanging his wet overcoat on a chair. His face was hollower under the +eyes and quite white, but he did not suggest fatigue; on the contrary +he seemed to restrain, as ever, a restless, burning vitality. + +"Good evening, Miss Davis," he said as she came in. "Or probably it +is good morning." + +"Yes, it is three-thirty. No Miss Reed?" + +"Not yet," he answered. He sat down with them and began to rub his +strong bony hands together. "Pretty cold," he said briskly. "I +wonder if I could have some coffee. I have not eaten anything since +noon." + +"I'll get you some," said Mrs. Jackson, "and you'd better have some +sandwiches too." + +She went out and Megan sat waiting for Doctor Strike to tell them +what had happened. The room had a strange look, seen in a startled +awakening from sleep, as though what was most familiar in it was only +a replica in a changed substance. She let her eyes linger on the +plush carpet, the pictures of dogs in lace caps and toppers, the +flannel collar sticking up from Mr. Jackson's blanket, the coolie +making the fire, whose bristling head some disease had turned bald in +patches, all of which assured her that she was awake in a world of +things that remain permanent. + +"It is cold driving," said the Doctor, still rubbing his hands +together. + +"Have you an open car?" asked Mr. Jackson. + +"Yes, all I could get. It was the only kind they would send with a +Chinese license, and they were reluctant enough to give me that." + +"Then you got your permit, did you?" + +"Yes, finally." And though he did not yet say so, Megan felt sure by +the sudden flare in his eyes that he had got it from General Yen. "I +spent some time at the Consulate, as you know, and a great deal more +time trying to get in touch with the Nantao Yamen. I tried through +every Chinese of influence I know in Shanghai. Our authorities were +trying to arrange an armistice between the Cantonese and the Northern +troops cornered in various sections around the North Station, and +General Duncan sent one of his officers who went with a Commissioner +and some Chinese to the Nantao Yamen to see what could be done about +it. I asked them to speak at the same time about the orphanage. But +all the negotiations fell through and on their way back from the +Yamen they were nearly killed by a mob. They only escaped because +General Hsu, questioning the guard he had sent with them, found they +had not been escorted all the way to the Settlement. So he sent +after them, and they were barely reached in time to save them from +the mob. Not too reassuring, is it? Remember, these were some of +our highest officials under a flag of truce. Well, well,--at any +rate this got me nowhere and it was already late. Earlier in the day +a Chinese I knew had mentioned that General Yen was staying in a +house on the Route Ghisi, and I determined as my last resort to try +to reach him. After all," he said, "we had been friends." + +Mrs. Jackson came back and sat down. + +"The sandwiches and coffee are coming," she said. "So you saw +General Yen again? What did he do?" + +"I went to the house in the Route Ghisi but a very insolent boy +coming to the door told me he wasn't in. 'When will he be in?' I +asked. He said he didn't know, so I pushed in past him and said I'd +wait. I sat in a dark hall. The house seemed truly deserted by its +masters; no one came in or out and I could hear behind a heavy door +at the end of the hall the muffled voices and laughter of the +servants. Every now and then I'd call the number one and question +him as to the whereabouts of General Yen, but he would not tell me +anything. I waited there from nine to eleven. Finally the number +one came and asked me for five dollars. I gave it to him and he said +General Yen was attending a banquet being given for him by friends at +the Great Eastern Hotel. + +"I went there but when I spoke to the clerk he told me the General +was not in the hotel. So I went over the hotel myself from floor to +floor, till I heard sounds from a room that made me feel a party was +going on inside. I pushed open the door in spite of all the room +boys on that floor who had gathered to protest against it. Well, he +was there. It was already late and the party had been going on a +long time. The General was quite drunk, drunker than I have ever +seen him. But he knew me at once. He insisted I sit down beside him +and join in the festivities, he offered me food and champagne,--yes, +he prefers champagne to samshu,--and he presented me to all and +sundry as his old and honored friend. Of course I took nothing, and +every time I tried to speak to him about the safe-conduct pass I +wanted from him he would only answer by offering me champagne, or he +would recite amorous verses, some of which he said he had written +himself, and his friends would all laugh and the singsong girls would +set up a din. It was very difficult. I began, I am afraid, to get +angry. At one moment I had an impulse to pull everything off the +table and throw chairs at each member of the party. I sat there +sufficiently silent and stiff one would imagine to cast a damper on +them. And perhaps I did, for suddenly the General grew silent too. +He sat and looked at the ceiling, a way he has when he is thinking, +and I began to pray that I might be given the power to touch the good +that is in him, that I know is in him. My prayer must have been +answered. After a little time he reached over for a sort of menu +card that lay by his place and called for some one to bring him a +brush and ink. 'What is this you are asking me for?' he said." + +Doctor Strike took a soiled piece of stiff paper out of his pocket +and handed it around for them to see. He smiled at Megan, the smile +she found so charming, for it was always a little tremulous and +uncertain in the midst of his firm, lined face. He put the paper +back again. + +"What time is it now?" he said. + +Megan looked at her wrist-watch. + +"Quarter to four." + +"I don't want to cut too close on time. If I can have that coffee +I'll get right along." + +"You aren't going there now, are you?" asked Mrs. Jackson, and +without waiting to hear his answer she went out to hurry the +preparations. + +"I must leave as soon as I can," said Doctor Strike. "You see, it is +like this. I did not feel myself that a safe-conduct pass alone in +times like this would be much of a help. I spoke of this to the +General, asking him if he couldn't let me have one or two of his men +as a body-guard. He hesitated about this, said he was leaving +himself on a special train at six o'clock from the North Station and +would have to take all his guard with him. I told him the orphanage +was so near the station I could get my friends out and have his guard +back by six o'clock. He said his guard were already at the station +and unless I could get that far there was no way he knew of to +communicate with them. 'Then give me an order to them,' I said, +'I'll pick them up there.' He still hesitated, and then a peculiar +thing happened. There was a young woman with him, one of his +concubines, I suppose. While I was talking I saw her looking at me +in an interested way, and at last she leaned over and spoke to the +General in a low voice. I could not hear what she said but finally +she said to me, in excellent English too, 'Doctor Strike, the General +will do what you ask.' I believe she had something to do with +persuading him. Before I left I managed to have a few words with +her. I thanked her. She told me, here is the remarkable part, that +she was educated in the Presbyterian Mission School in Soochow. I +was in Soochow, you know, for years and she said she knew me as soon +as I came into the room." + +"Extraordinary. It seems like a real providence working out," +exclaimed Mr. Jackson. + +"But how does a Mission-reared girl become the concubine of a +general?" asked Megan. + +"I don't know. It distressed me. I must try to learn more about +her." + +Mrs. Jackson and the number one boy returned with coffee and +sandwiches, and the Doctor began to eat and drink hungrily. + +"There is one thing that worries me now," he said, "and that is my +driver. He has a Chinese license but I know he will balk at going +into Chinese territory. I have a short distance to go between the +barricade at Range Road and the North Station, but anything may +happen in it. And further, there is the possibility of my not making +contact with the guard. He may give me trouble or at the least +desert. I think two of us, Jackson, would be better than one." + +Mr. Jackson's face showed utter misery and humiliation. + +"He cannot possibly go," cried Mrs. Jackson. "He has a temperature +of one hundred and two. He oughtn't to be up here now. You know he +almost died of pneumonia two years ago." + +"Oh, I think I can manage it," said Mr. Jackson. + +"No, no," cried the Doctor emphatically, "don't think of it. It is +cold outside and raining, it would be suicide." + +"Let me come," said Megan, "I can drive a car. I would be able to do +that while you do whatever else is necessary." + +Every one turned to look at her and Megan felt her face flush. Her +words had come without her mind having consciously prompted them or +her will consenting, but now that they were spoken they suddenly +crystallized into her intention. + +"You say you can drive a car," asked the Doctor, "a Ford?" + +"Yes." + +His eyes turned a current into her so that all her weaknesses seemed +to jangle out audibly like electric bells. But she bore his scrutiny +as well as she could and after all, she thought, perhaps the keenness +of his vision is inward, not for what is about him. Some instinct +even told her that he was often blinded by the reflections of his own +qualities and that the last thing to surprise him in another would be +courage. Of Mrs. Jackson however she was more afraid. But when she +glanced at her Mrs. Jackson was not looking at her, and it was Mr. +Jackson who uttered a protest. + +"But Miss Davis, I don't believe you realize the possibilities. +Remember, I feel a great responsibility for you." + +"I really insist on going," said Megan, "if Doctor Strike thinks I +can be of any help." She spoke so emphatically that her voice +sounded disagreeable, and Mr. Jackson sank back in his chair looking +quite ill and sadly worrying the end of his mustache. + +"Have some sandwiches and coffee then," said Mrs. Jackson; "you ate +no dinner, I noticed." + +It seemed to be settled, though Doctor Strike, had not yet definitely +accepted her. Megan ate some sandwiches and drank heartily a cup of +coffee to demonstrate that she was not at all nervous. + +"I don't believe we'll have any trouble," said the Doctor. "I have a +permit from General Duncan for the Settlement and one from the French +Commandant of the Defense for the Concession. We can only of course +go through the Concessions. That leaves us a minimum of Chinese +territory to cross between Range Road and the North Station, only +several hundred yards as I remember it, and from there on we have the +guard of General Yen." + +He said the last words with a smile; he was happy, Megan saw, +actively happy and even a little triumphant. + +"What time is it?" he asked again. + +"Four o'clock." + +"Then if you will get a warm coat, Miss Davis, we had better be +starting." + +Megan ran up-stairs and returned with a coat. + +Outside in the thin rain stood a Ford car, the curtains down and a +Chinese driver huddled at the wheel. He did not even look at them +and Megan was sure the Doctor was right in believing he could not be +depended on; he was sullen or frightened or both. The Doctor got in +beside him and Megan got in the back. The driver climbed slowly out +and cranked. Mrs. Jackson stood by the car talking to Megan: + +"You had better button up your collar," she said, "these nights are +raw and you don't look too strong. You'll be in luck if you don't +catch your death of cold." And she added with an unexpected +satisfaction, "Miss Reed will certainly be surprised when the Doctor +turns up with a lady." + +The car jerked forward before Megan could answer. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter VIII headpiece] + +CHAPTER VIII + +They entered the Concession at the Avenue Joffre and drove down it at +tremendous speed. At this hour it was empty of people, and seen in +the half-darkness and misty rain, it looked like any street in an +American suburb except that at the corner under the lights stood the +motionless Annamites in their peaked hats, as sinisterly irrelevant +as if they were part of a bad dream. They turned into the winding +Avenue Foch, which marked the boundary between the French Concession +and the International Settlement. At the Bund they showed their +passes, a green laissez-passer from the French Commandant of the +Defense and a slip of typed paper from the Shanghai Defense Force, +and entered the International Settlement. They passed along the Bund +under the staring eyes of the war-ships and crossed Soochow Creek at +the Garden Bridge, where they again showed their passes to Marines +from the _Blas de Lezo_. They turned left along the creek, up North +Szechuen Road and into Range Road. It became a longer ride than +Megan had expected. + +Once or twice Doctor Strike leaned back and said a few words, but it +was so obviously to give the illusion of a casual ride that she did +not bother to play up to it. She was too intensely preoccupied. The +sudden opening of a channel for her energy and will made her a little +giddy. And this giddiness, this feeling of an uncontrollably +quickening rhythm, mounted alarmingly. Megan tried to put a check on +it by holding up for examination each fragment of sensation as it +passed. But everything remained as blurred as it had been before. +She was only sure of that released energy flowing strongly and now so +inevitably forward. This release gave an amazing sense of freedom, +for a moment too vertiginous a freedom. The exquisite poise of free +will in the midst of the ordered progress of the will of God seemed +to have been jarred, suddenly to vary wildly. Megan jerked it +sharply back. + +She sat staring at the back of Doctor Strike's head. He wore no hat +and his great bony skull was flanked by two prominent ears. His ears +were vaguely and irritatingly amusing. That was because they were so +obviously a vulnerable mechanism. What a long way from the flawless +intrepidity of the Doctor's spirit to the imperfection of those ears. +It is with instruments such as these that we go armed. Megan was +overcome by their inadequacy, she found them lamentable and all at +once heroic, as though they stood for all of our weakness, for our +glory. + +The car reached the Range Road barricade where they had been a few +hours before. It stopped and Megan admitted she was now thoroughly +afraid. Perhaps she had been so ever since arriving in China. But +in naming fear it seemed to lose some of its importance. It took its +place among such things as heat, cold, hunger and stomach-ache, one +of the lower, more elemental ills. Her teeth chattered and she felt +a definite cramp. As she put up her hand to tighten the collar of +her coat she was relieved to find her fingers articulating. + +Doctor Strike leaned out and presented their passes to the sergeant +and she heard him explain what their errand was. The sergeant was +sympathetic. + +"I'd like to go along, sir," he said wistfully. He put his head +inside the car to look at Megan. "Good evening, miss," he said. + +"Good evening," said Megan. + +They drove slowly on. It was a dark street sewn with barbed wire, +and because Megan knew it to be a sort of No Man's Land between both +territories its very emptiness was a menace. She smelled smoke +again. The roofs of the houses ahead blackened against a dull glow. +They made a swing to the right and stopped before another barricade. +It was guarded by Chinese soldiers. As the Doctor showed his pass, +Megan saw ahead, across an open space, the whitish lights of the +North Station, and beyond, a confusion of black lines traced against +the heavy smoke of half-quenched fires. She saw directly at her left +a yellow wall with a large advertisement, partly in English, partly +in Chinese characters, "Ruby Queen Cigarettes," and below, a small +white sign "Boundary Road." They passed through and along Boundary +Road toward the station. They drove very slowly, and as they crossed +the open space between two barbed-wire entanglements the Doctor +leaned out, peering ahead for signs of the promised guard. The +enclosure of the station, surrounded by a high iron fence, was +crowded with troops standing about under the arc lights. On the +ground lay row after row of men in gray uniforms, roughly laid out, +filling all the available space. Megan did not know whether they +were dead or had dropped there in exhaustion. The car stopped by a +gate and she heard the Doctor speaking to a soldier standing there. +They appeared to be having an argument and the car, while they +talked, punctuated their words with its senseless rattling and +chugging. Then the Doctor turned his head a little toward her and +said: + +"The guard is not here." + +She saw his face was rigid but not with fear or even anxiety. It +struck her that the General had failed him again. + +"Really?" she said. + +He would not even look at her; with his eyes on the ground, he said: +"Yes, but I think we had better go on anyway. Are you willing?" + +"Certainly." + +Suddenly the engine stopped. The driver began to shout excitedly at +the Doctor, he flung out his hands, addressing every one, especially +the soldiers crowded around the station gate, then he jumped out of +the car. + +"Well, I expected this," said the Doctor. He got out after the +driver and Megan closed her eyes, her mind going blank for a moment +at the idea that the Doctor would be dragged off and she left alone +in the car. Fear is a concentration so intense that of necessity it +occasionally snaps into moments of unconsciousness. The Doctor +cranked the car and when he climbed in again Megan felt such relief +that she broke into a light sweat. They drove on, leaving the driver +and the crowd at the gate. They passed on the right the smoldering +ruins of godowns and station sheds, then turned abruptly to the left +across the car tracks and down a narrow street. + +"I think this is the place," said the Doctor. + +They were in a close, dark street of shops with overhanging +galleries. After the fire-wasted section they had left behind them +it was strangely intact. It seemed safe. The shops were shuttered +and closed, no light showed in the houses, and it was dark except for +a low glow reflected from the fires behind them which occasionally +intensified into a momentary brilliance and died again. Farther +along it became quite dark. They went slowly because of the rough, +cobbled road. Ahead they saw a light shining from a flat, bland +surface set in the midst of the tortuous curves of Chinese buildings. +It was an oil lamp burning over a doorway and just beneath it was a +slab of white stone with the words "Saint Andrew's Orphanage." There +was something very bald and innocent about these words but the brick +orphanage was dark and apparently deserted; the windows made a thin +glimmer like new ice over dark water, and Megan saw that some of them +had been broken and were starred with long cracks like broken ice. +Across from the orphanage was some sort of eating-house with one +narrow door open. There was a dim light inside and when the car +stopped Megan heard Chinese voices and smelled the rancid odor of +Chinese cooking oil. + +"Here we are," said the Doctor and climbed out. + +Megan got out and as her feet touched the ground, as she saw that she +was able to respond to the necessity of moving, her fear suddenly, +perceptibly lightened. It passed like pain, leaving her weak-kneed +but with a calm that can come sometimes from exhaustion. She looked +up at the white slab set over the door and the words graven on it. A +thin rain began to fall in slanting lines across the light of the oil +lamp and but for that light she would have believed the orphanage to +have been long abandoned. Not a sound came from it. As they moved +toward the steps a soldier suddenly stepped into the radius of light. +He wore a dirty gray uniform and had a fat face pitted with smallpox +which had blinded one eye. He was followed by several soldiers who +came out of the door of the eating-house and two or three other men +in nondescript clothes only a little better than a coolie's. The +Doctor fumbled in his pockets for his pass and spoke to the first +soldier in a voice which because of its totally unexpected +hail-fellow joviality struck Megan as a little shocking. He was +making, she was sure, some jest about his inability to find anything, +and the very falseness of his air of good-fellowship told her their +attempt had become desperate. The failure of the guard to be at the +station had weighed down the danger side of the scale and what might +be behind the walls of the orphanage held the other side in +uncertainty. She stood quietly holding her collar across her mouth +while the Doctor produced all his passes, Chinese, French and +English. The group pressed closer around them, close enough to brush +her shoulder. They seemed profoundly stupid but obstinately +insistent on being in on whatever was to happen. + +"Why don't they go on?" thought Megan. "Can they possibly care what +we do!" And their motives, so impossible to clarify, represented +still another element in their present problem. But the most +important was the dark and apparently deserted orphanage. + +Megan dropped her eyes to the ground; she could not bear to look at +the Chinese, nor at the Doctor who was flourishing his passes under +the eyes of the sullen soldier, joking and even laughing in his +unnaturally cheery voice. She could not bear to take part in his +humiliation; she was ashamed at even, feeling it to be humiliating. +It was courage of a sort for which she was too petty. + +Suddenly Doctor Strike changed his tactics. + +"Well, well," he said abruptly but still jovially, "we will just have +a knock at the door and see who is in." + +He caught Megan's arm and pushed her ahead of him up the five steps +to the door. He rapped on it with his fist and called not loudly but +with sharp insistence, "Miss Reed! Miss Reed!" + +Not a sound came from behind the door. They stood directly under the +oil lamp. In its shadow, and from the slight vantage of the five +steps, Megan, watching the upturned faces of the group below, saw in +them some indefinable change as if the Doctor's movement had stirred +in them a necessity for action. She knew she and the Doctor would +never be allowed to come down the steps, get into their car and drive +off,--not without some other event, perhaps a mere trifle, coming to +change the course of the accumulating determination of the group. +The Doctor knew this too, but he only stood looking down at them with +an expression of intense thoughtfulness. + +"I don't think there is any one inside; they must be gone," murmured +Megan. + +The Doctor did not answer. + +"Maybe they are dead," added Megan. + +The Doctor shook his head. He rapped on the door once more, and +raised his voice to a shout, "Miss Reed! Miss Reed!" + +Suddenly the door opened before them. They stepped inside and it was +closed behind them with a firm and reassuring bang. + +They stood in complete blackness in which Megan heard heavy breathing +and felt the nearness of human bodies. + +"Just a moment," a whisper sounded close to her ear. There was the +scratch of a match and a nimbus of yellow light appeared on the dark +in which, as in a fluid, was caught the small, lined face of a woman +with large pale eyes. It was the redoubtable Miss Reed, who would +not take any advice and whose obstinacy had brought them all to this +predicament. She held a candle in her hand. Behind her stood +another woman, a sturdy, sandy-haired girl, stout and asthmatic. It +was she whose breathing Megan had heard. Miss Reed looked at them a +moment and then exclaimed in a singularly sweet, low voice: + +"Oh, Doctor Strike, is this really you? How like you to come, how +like you!" + +The Doctor nodded and said brusquely: "I have Miss Davis with me." + +His air of good-fellowship had vanished, he looked sterner than Megan +had ever seen him. + +Miss Reed smiled gently at Megan and said, turning to her companion: + +"This is Miss Minton. I am sorry we have no lights, but we didn't +want to provide a target and besides the electricity is cut off. We +have been staying in the back of the house. That is why we didn't +open the first time you called. We came as soon as we could." She +apologized as if she had said, "The butter is not so fresh to-day." + +"Are you all here?" asked the Doctor. + +"Only Miss Minton and myself and five Russian children. The rest +were all taken away by Chinese friends. I couldn't find refuge for +the others so I stayed with them, and Miss Minton very generously +preferred to stay with me." + +The stout girl, breathing heavily, nodded in corroboration of this. + +"Won't you come into the parlor? It opens into the court, we'll be +more comfortable there." + +"No, I think not," said Doctor Strike. "'You had better get the +children together and come with me at once. I think any delay at all +would be the worst thing possible. I have a car outside." + +"I don't believe, Doctor," said Miss Reed hesitatingly, "that we will +be allowed out. You'll find there is a guard there, supposedly to +protect us but actually to keep us in. I tried several times to-day +but wasn't allowed to pass." + +"I saw your guard. It came out of an eating-house across the way as +we drove up. There are a few others with them. But it is our only +chance just the same. I must try to jolly our way through. You know +a whole mob of Chinese has been known to turn if you can only give +them something to laugh about." + +"Yes, but----" + +At that moment a noise from the street made them all start, a +commonplace noise but nothing could have been more ominous. It was +the Ford engine. The doctor swung around and for a moment wrestled +with the double latch of the door. Miss Reed blew out the candle. +After an infinitesimal delay the Doctor got the door open. It framed +a square of dimly lighted street, in which the Ford was just starting +amid the group of Chinese who scattered a little to let it pass. +When it had gone they all with one accord turned toward the open +doorway and Megan saw on every face one sudden grotesque disturbance +of line, while a wave of sound broke from them, terrifying in its +simplicity, like the laughter of children tormenting a cat. Doctor +Strike slammed the door and once more they stood in darkness. + +Megan said to herself that at any rate they had given the Chinese +something to laugh about. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter IX headpiece] + +CHAPTER IX + +They stood for a moment without moving and Megan heard the heavy +breathing of Miss Minton, punctuated by one long sigh of resignation +from Miss Reed. Then a match scratched once more and Miss Reed's +candle was relighted. + +"Who could have taken it?" she asked. + +"My driver," said the Doctor bitterly. "He must have followed us. I +should have counted on that possibility. I should never have left +the car." + +"But what else could you have done?" cried Megan, anxious to reassure +him. + +"You could have come to the door. I should have stayed in the car." + +He dropped his head forward between his shoulders for a moment, like +a man overcome by exhaustion. + +"Well," said Miss Reed, "we may as well go to the parlor now." + +They followed her down the hall and through a door into a room where +on a center table burned an oil lamp with a green shade. It was a +room bare of rugs, with a few pieces of blackwood furniture made by +native carpenters; on the walls were some of Hoffman's religious +pictures; a quantity of mats and doilies of cross-stitch and filet +hung over tables and chairs, and on the top of an harmonium there +were vases of paper flowers, like the needlework probably the work of +the orphans. In one corner stood a splendid old Korean chest, +looking almost abashed to be keeping such company. + +They sat down about the center table in silence. It was cold so +Megan kept on her coat. She said nothing, she was absorbed in the +wonder of having been so calm, of still feeling calm. Miss Reed +picked up a pencil and began to follow with invisible lines the +pattern of the cover. Her finger-nails were quite blue with cold. +She was watching her pencil, her rather prominent pale eyes cast +down; her colorless lashes, unusually long, absurdly suggested under +the light the feathery antennae of an insect. Megan began to take an +interest in her. She looked at her more closely and at the Doctor. +She guessed that between Miss Reed and the Doctor there was an +antagonism of some sort, perhaps of long standing. From the look of +his set face it might be even active dislike. He sat with his arms +folded across his chest and in the light of the oil lamp his head was +reduced to its essential structure, almost skull-like, but it no +longer suggested weakness to Megan. It was the same head only now +its bareness was formidable. + +"What has been happening to you here?" he asked. "And why have you +been so unwilling to leave?" + +Miss Reed might easily have felt that some reproach was due her but +apparently she did not. She answered in her sweet, gentle voice: + +"I believe up until yesterday we were quite safe. I have been +through a great deal in my time. I was in Senchow in 1903, my first +year in China. I was only eighteen then. You couldn't expect me to +seek shelter at the first alarm. But yesterday things grew suddenly +worse. Shells fell from somewhere very near, my amah said from a car +on a siding by the North Station. One of them wrecked the servants' +quarters across the court, but no one was hurt, fortunately. I could +tell that areas near us were on fire. There has been a tremendous +amount of smoke. And there was plenty of street fighting all +afternoon. But by that time we had abandoned the front of the house +because about noon an unfriendly crowd gathered outside and broke the +windows with stones. Once some one set fire to our buildings in the +back here, but we managed to put it out, with God's help. To my +surprise a guard was appointed by some one to protect the property. +I don't know by whom. They spend most of their time in the +eating-house across the street and they did not help us a bit when +the crowd gathered. But when I try to go out they always stop me. +All yesterday afternoon I sent my amah out with the children, one by +one, to the houses of various Christian Chinese, who I knew would +take care of them. But the little Russians I had no place for, and +besides, the amah never came back after the last trip. So there are +only the five Russians, Miss Minton and I here. Miss Soames, you +know, is in the Shanghai General, she was taken ill over a week ago." + +"Why do you suppose a crowd gathered, just general animosity or +something special?" + +"Rather special, I am afraid. A child was run over by a truck in +front of the house about a week ago. We took him in here and gave +him first aid but he died shortly after, and the parents came and +made a terrible to-do, blaming us for his death. He was an only son +and the father is a foreman in one of the Naigai cotton mills, a +prominent labor leader, rather important in this district. Of course +we've always had a great deal of antagonism from the people here, but +I think the incident would account for the crowd. I believe if it +had not been for our little guard and the fact that there were so +many snipers about in the streets and on the house-tops they might +have--well, they might have done nearly anything to us." + +She sighed resignedly and dropped her eyes again so that her lashes +hung antennæ-like against the light. Miss Minton, whose heavy face +and rather congested eyes had been turned toward her while she spoke, +now looked anxiously to Doctor Strike to see what the effect was on +him. But he made no comment, he was not looking at any of them, and +Megan felt that he was trying over in his mind the various +possibilities left open to them. She wondered what they would do +now. The little back parlor suggested to her vaguely a room where +she had gone to Sunday-school as a child, and it seemed, by +association of ideas, safe. But she was afraid to dwell on ideas of +safety and security lest they should weaken her. She stared at a +cross-stitch camel embroidered on the table cover and turned her +thoughts to schoolboy stories of journeys across the Gobi and wild +Mongol raids. + +"How long would it take you to get the children ready?" asked the +Doctor. + +"They are in the next room," said Miss Reed, "sleeping in their +clothes." + +"Then you had better wake them up and we will start at once." + +Miss Minton looked hastily from the Doctor back to Miss Reed and she +began to breathe asthmatically again. + +"Why, Doctor," exclaimed Miss Reed softly, "you don't think of our +starting out now on foot, do you?" + +Miss Minton looked around with an expression almost of triumph, as if +Miss Reed's obstinacy were a source of satisfaction and even pride to +her. + +"I certainly do. I insist on it. We are actually only a short +distance from Range Road. The streets are as empty now as they ever +will be. In one hour, in half an hour, they will begin to fill +again. It is unfortunate that the guard promised me did not come and +still more unfortunate I lost the car, but you cannot stay here." + +Miss Reed, who had been assiduously making designs on the table cover +with her pencil, lifted her eyes to Doctor Strike, and Megan was +startled to observe under the long pale lashes the fixed idolatrous +gaze of a schoolgirl. + +"I don't feel it would be wise to leave," she said gently. "I feel +if we stay here with our guard we are comparatively safe, but if we +start out, even if we are allowed to leave the house, we will be +attacked before we reach the barricade." + +Doctor Strike let his quicksilver eyes flicker angrily over her for a +moment. + +"I don't understand you," he cried. "Do you really suppose Miss +Davis and I came here to shut ourselves up in your orphanage, where +the best we can hope for is to cower under cover until some one else +comes to take us out?" + +"I am sorry about Miss Davis. I did not ask any of you to come, +though I appreciate your devotion in doing so. But I am responsible +to God for the safety of these children and Miss Minton. I don't +feel it would be wise to expose them in the streets now." + +"You prefer to keep them here and be burned out, hit by a shell, or +butchered by the mob?" + +"I don't believe we would even be allowed to leave." + +"I have a pass from General Yen. I have got by on it so far. If I +can get you out, will you come?" + +"No," said Miss Reed. "I don't think it would be wise." + +The Doctor turned from them and slumped forward in his chair till his +long legs stretched straight in front of him. He folded his arms +across his chest and stared at the floor. He looked as if he were +going to sleep, worn out by discouragement. Miss Reed added little +flourishes to her invisible designs, and Miss Minton breathed out an +explosive, "Well!" + +Megan said, "I think you ought to reconsider, Miss Reed. The Doctor +has been working for days to get you safely out. I think you ought +to do as he says." + +"You must really let me use my own judgment," replied Miss Reed, but +she did not look at Megan, only at the Doctor, and Megan saw she drew +a positive intoxication from this opposition of their wills. She +felt as if it were a taut cord between them which, as soon as Miss +Reed gave in, would snap and leave them separated once more. + +"Horrible woman," she said to herself. "If Mrs. Jackson were here +she would know what to say to her. One commonplace word from her +would shatter the spell." For she knew it was useless to talk to her +of sacrifice and death and torture. She had already accepted these +possibilities with complacency. Exasperation with Miss Reed began to +take possession of her. She looked at her watch and saw it was after +five o'clock. In a short time, she was not sure how short, it would +be daylight. She looked at the Doctor. His head sunk between his +shoulders was the head of a sick old bird of prey. + +Perhaps he felt he had undergone enough humiliation even for the sake +of saving their lives. As she looked at him, he came to a decision. +His head jerked up from his chest; he said shortly: + +"You are probably right. I believe after all you are safer here." + +"Yes, that is what I think." Miss Reed drew in a deep breath and +laid down her pencil. "I feel sure I am right." + +The Doctor got up and took out his watch. + +"I forgot this doesn't run," he said, "it hasn't for the last week, +but I don't seem to remember to have it fixed. What time is it, Miss +Davis?" + +"Five ten." + +"Well, shall we once more brave the dangers of Chapei?" He spoke +again with his air of using English laboriously. "Unless, like Miss +Reed, you prefer the safety of the orphanage. How about that? I +don't like to ask you to take a chance that she is not willing to +take." + +"Oh, I'm willing." + +"Good," he said cheerfully. "I am proud of you!" + +Megan buttoned up her coat. The Doctor had taken his off and it hung +over the back of his chair. As he lifted it to put it on, Miss Reed +ran around the table and held it for him. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. + +There was no trace of irritation in his face. Looking at Miss Reed +Megan saw in her eyes an empty look as if one feeling had evaporated +too quickly for another immediately to take its place. + +They stood about the table for a moment. Then Miss Reed crossed over +to one of the windows and opened it. She stood there listening. +Megan heard the rain falling more heavily now, spattering off the +eaves, on to the sill, on to the tiles of the courtyard, a +deliciously relaxing sound, a sound of abandonment, of dissolution. +They all listened. Then a sudden crackle of rifle-shots burst +through, stamped against the monotones of night, silence, and rain +like rockets on a dark sky. Megan was vividly conscious once more of +the terrors of the outside, terrors beyond this veil of rain +streaming over them like a protective insulation. The thought of +safety became suddenly so sweet that her mind clung to it for a +moment with a piercing delight. Then she thought of how a few hours +before she had lain in her bed and envied the workers at the +orphanage, and a forced, heavily articulated courage crept over her. +She heard without surprise Miss Reed's voice: + +"Perhaps it might be better to make a run for it. If you can wait a +moment I'll get the children ready." + +Miss Reed hurried into the next room followed by Miss Minton. The +Doctor sat down again and closed his eyes. Megan sat down opposite +him. He said nothing, and Megan could see in his face no sign of +anger or triumph. She wondered if he had ever been aware of the +curious adoration, forced into an unwilling antagonism, which Miss +Reed so clearly felt for him. Poor Miss Reed! She did not believe +he did. His skull-like face with closed, hollowed eyes was empty now +of all feeling, only his lips moved slightly as if he were praying. + +Very shortly the two women returned with five small children wrapped +in coats and shawls, huddling together and staring at the light like +little blinded animals. One little girl was crying, but Miss Minton +very expertly wound her woolen scarf across her mouth so that her +sobs were muffled and she might use her scarf, if she wished, for a +handkerchief. Miss Reed and Miss Minton carried two old suitcases +and wore very worn coats of leopard cat and no hats. Miss Reed's +small face framed with short hair, in spite of its many lines, looked +strangely childish above the frayed fur collar, especially as Megan +saw on it the adolescent look of adoration which had become now +faintly idiotic. She walked to Doctor Strike and laid her hand on +his arm. + +"We are in your hands now, Doctor," she said. + +But the Doctor made no reply. He took her bag abruptly from her, +snatched Miss Minton's and stalked out of the parlor. Miss Minton +and Miss Reed gathered a child with each hand and followed. Megan +came last with the smallest, she who had been crying. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter X headpiece] + +CHAPTER X + +At the street door they stopped for a moment and listened. No sound +came from the street, but they heard once more at a little distance +the crackle of rifle fire. The Doctor seemed satisfied. He opened +the door slowly, then suddenly swung it wide. The street was empty, +the eating-house across the way shuttered and closed, the dim light +over their own door shone only on rain spattering in puddles on the +rough road. + +"We are fortunate," said the Doctor. "Now keep close together but +don't walk too fast." + +They closed the door carefully and noiselessly behind them. They +stood still while the Doctor looked cautiously up and down the +street, but still they saw nothing and heard only the vast, diffused +sound of rain. + +"It seems almost too good to be true," he murmured. + +They started slowly down and quite suddenly Miss Minton slipped on +the wet step and fell thudding her whole length to the sidewalk. She +fell without a word, as completely as though she carried out a +rehearsed part, and lay there with her head turned from them. They +looked at her, unwilling to believe she had actually fallen. Doctor +Strike stepped down and picked her up. He held her for a moment, and +her eyes were congested, astonished, her mouth half open. + +"I've hurt my ankle," she said hoarsely. + +The smallest child began to cry once more, and Miss Minton was not +able as before to muffle her sobs. + +They stood and looked at Miss Minton, even Doctor Strike looked at +her for a moment, as though she had deliberately betrayed them and +they were aghast at her duplicity. The smallest child went on +sobbing. + +"Hush, darling, do hush," whispered Megan. She wiped its streaming +eyes and nose with her handkerchief. + +"Oh, I've hurt my ankle!" Miss Minton's voice had become a groan of +anguish. + +The Doctor bent and examined it while Miss Reed held her up. + +"It isn't broken," he said. "You will just have to walk on it +somehow. I'll help you." + +They redistributed the children and the baggage, the Doctor put his +arm under Miss Minton's arms. + +"Try now," he insisted. "You've got to do it." She limped forward, +her breath coming in explosive groans at every step. The youngest +child began to cry more loudly. + +"Hush, darling," said Megan and, when she did not stop, shook her +slightly. "You really must hush," she said sharply. + +They moved along the street with the slowness of a nightmare. But +Megan knew they must reach the barricade, because there were always +certain things that God would never permit and the slaughter of these +children was one of them. They would certainly reach the barricade. +The street was so cold, so dark, touched only by flickerings of +distant fires, that it was impossible to imagine it as ever made +aware of the infinitely remote warmth and beauty of the sun. Megan +felt that she might be crawling over some dead planet, strayed +outside the universe, moving blindly and remotely toward no possible +end. And yet the barricade was only a few hundred yards away. +Doctor Strike had said the Chinese were never able to discover the +existence of a God of love. It had not seemed so tragic when he said +it as it did now. Now she could not conceive of how they had existed +without it. Only to a God of love was everything possible, +immortality, redemption, miracle. Miracle. These children were +going to be got alive and unharmed to the barricade. + +They reached the end of the street, turned to the right and walked +slowly, the limping Miss Minton in their midst, past the smoldering, +smoking ruins of the godowns to the North Station. + +The station enclosure was crowded and steam from an engine gushed up +from behind the roof of a platform. They kept on the far side of the +street. Miss Minton was groaning and sobbing. She fell against +Doctor Strike's shoulder. + +"I can't do it," she cried, "I just can't do it." + +The Doctor looked over and saw inside the iron fence of the enclosure +five or six rickshaws waiting, the coolies squatting between the +shafts. There was a crowd around the entrance, which was a side one +leading directly to the train platforms. They had not yet come to +the main gate. They could see that the crowd was mostly soldiers but +there were coolies among them. The Doctor seized Miss Minton more +firmly about the waist and half carried her across the street to the +side gate. Megan, Miss Reed and the children followed close behind. +At the gate the Doctor called stridently: + +"_Wambotso!_" + +The rickshaws swooped down on them like pigeons to scattered grain. +There were six of them jostling and tugging for place. The crowd in +their curiosity pressed them against the iron fence. Megan's +shoulder was pressed against the iron. She pushed and kept as well +as she could a clear space in front of her for the huddling children. +A very tall coolie with a bronze aquiline face and a cue wound around +his battered felt hat was looking at her across several heads and +shoulders. He held a long bamboo carrying-pole. He said something +in a loud voice and some of the others laughed. Megan looked away +from him. Doctor Strike had reached one of the rickshaws with Miss +Minton and lifted her in. The rickshaw started. He put four +children into the next and sent it following, Miss Reed he lifted by +force into the next. Megan saw her protest, heard her say wildly, +"Not till you come, Doctor!", but he set the youngest Russian on her +lap and himself shoved the rickshaw forward. + +The rickshaws swerved aside to make room for a big closed car which +had come up to the side gate. The soldiers began shoving the crowd +to make way and Megan was nearly pushed off her feet. She had a +momentary glimpse of Doctor Strike's face, rigid and white, and the +blaze of his quicksilver eyes, as he turned to put her in the next +rickshaw. Then the tall coolie with the carrying-pole struck him +over the head. He staggered backward from her, crashing into the +rickshaw he had intended for her. Megan caught him under the arms +and, with an effort that seemed to tear her strength out by the +roots, lifted him into it. The rickshaw lurched forward and she had +time to see them all four wabbling drunkenly in their flight away +from her down the street. Suddenly frantic, almost beyond +consciousness, she clutched at the remaining one. But she felt +herself torn from it, heard shouts, indistinguishable clamor, and +through it, like a thin ray of light, like a small sudden pain, one +scream that was her own. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XI headpiece] + +CHAPTER XI + +The circles that whirled around Megan's head came dangerously close, +but there seemed to be no way to stop them because she floated on +darkness unsupported. Then something else touched her, harsh and +ugly even in darkness, and on consideration she found it was within +her and it hurt. But that was exactly it, it was pain. And pain +made her aware of a body that seemed to form sluggishly about her +once more, out of uncertain elements. + +The circles swung past, widening, they slewed off, whirled more +remotely. But the pain became something that had to be handled. It +was punctuated by a joggling movement, irritating, persistent. It +was like tiny jets of flickering light. + +The last of the circles throbbed dimly a long way off, vanished, and +the joggling went on. Something must be done. An effort of some +sort must be made. But where was the spring of action? In the arms, +in the legs, in the eyelids? Push somehow. And it was easy after +all. It was done. + +Megan saw that it was raining again. Another rainy day. She seemed +to be caught in one great, gray, endless spider-web of a rainy day. + +But the pain was only a pain in the head, over the eyes, making it +difficult to keep them open. + +The joggling went on, modified now and unimportant. + +Directly ahead was a little half-moon shining agreeably in the +grayness, a little half-moon of lime-green satin supporting another +moon, full, round, traced with benevolent, surprised eyebrows. + +"Do you feel better?" + +Some one had said that. + +"I believe I do," said Megan and saw a train moving, rain streaming +down a pane, a Chinese face over a collar of lime-green satin. + +"Then I want you to drink some tea." + +A hand like a curled shell held a glass over which hung steam in a +small fog, with an odor of aromatic flowers. + +"I don't think I can drink it." + +"Please try." + +"I think it will make me sick." + +The eyebrows lifted now with such a delicate insistence, not really +eyebrows, only painted lines done with one stroke on a powdered +forehead. + +Some one came up from behind and held a hot, wet towel on her +forehead. Surprisingly, it felt well, seemed to dissolve most of the +pain and made her conscious of other lesser pains in the back, +shoulders and arms. But the head was the real pain in spite of +towels. + +"You must not be frightened," said the lady, "no one will hurt you." + +Suddenly a vista clicked open. She saw the face of the coolie with +the cue wound round his hat, four rickshaws fleeing from her down a +dark street, and she felt again the last draining of strength as she +lifted Doctor Strike into the rickshaw, felt also the humiliation of +her terror which had permitted her to shriek for help in the midst of +a crowd. This last became physical. + +"I'm afraid I'm going to be sick," she said. + +"Try to drink some tea." + +A cool hand slipped under her head. Megan looked into a glass and +saw little tea flowers swimming in it upright like weeds on a river +bottom. They moved up to her and a heat that was pungent flowed down +her throat direct to some center of weakness which was instantly +fortified. She was not sick. + +"The General thinks it will do you good." + +"The General!" + +In the corner of the carriage nearest the window sat a man in a gray +uniform. His prominent eyes held the reflection of some +incomprehensible amusement. As he saw her looking at him he rose out +of his seat and bowed. + +"I am so sorry for you," he said. "I am not responsible for what has +happened. But I am charging myself to take care of you and you will +not be harmed." He made a slight gesture with one hand, expressing +an apology more delicate than his words. Megan stared at his hand. +The beauty of it was strangely familiar. + +The amah put another towel on her head, and the lady in the green +satin coat at intervals held the tea to her lips. Megan sipped it +slowly. There was a significance to all this which escaped her. + +"Haven't I seen you somewhere before, or am I imagining----" + +"No," said the General, and he smiled outright, "you do not imagine. +You were kind enough to offer me a handkerchief." + +"But of course. You were going into the Concession. The wrecked +car." + +He and the lady nodded. + +To decide what she was doing in a train with the man of the wrecked +car, with the lady of the green coat, was too much for her. To ask +them did not occur to her. But she had seen them before. That made +the situation reasonable enough that she was able to accept it for +the time being. + +"Oh, I guess it is all right," she said vaguely. + +They nodded again, both smiling to reassure her. Megan closed her +eyes. She heard them murmur to each other in Chinese. When she +opened her eyes the lady was sitting across from her, over her knees +the amah had spread an embroidered towel and she was feeding herself +with chopsticks out of little bowls, held close to her mouth, which +the amah handed her in turn. The General was not eating. He smoked +a cigarette and, his head leaning back against the cushions, blew +smoke rings toward the ceiling. Megan studied the amazing, wasteful +beauty of the hand with the cigarette. She remembered its +inefficiency when touching a bleeding forehead, when holding open a +car door, yet it remained an exquisite instrument. + +She turned her head a little. The corridor behind the glass-topped +door was crowded with soldiers in gray. One leaned with an air of +privilege against the glass. Around his neck he wore a salmon-pink +silk cord attached to a Mauser from which hung a salmon-pink silk +tassel. The other soldiers carried small bath towels and tin cups. +This grander one no doubt was the General's orderly. Megan turned to +the window, trying to raise her head a little, and the amah at once +lifted her, supporting her against a cool linen shoulder. The train +was cutting across a land spread out in the greenness of young rice +and mulberries beginning to leaf, a land webbed with canals bringing +water to the endless fields, on whose muddy shallows fringed with +water hyacinths the laden, unhurried processions of sampans wove +great slow patterns of movement about the arrow-like flight of the +train. The train passed relentlessly the small half-naked men +carrying loads swung from their shoulders, who stepped with the +jogging trot of the heavily burdened along stone trails already +pressed deep into the sod by the weight and weariness of endless +feet. A hill rose and disappeared, carrying on its crest a pagoda, +an unstable shape of inverted bell-flowers stacked one on top of +another, surely a deliberate note of the purest frivolity against the +fatigue, the solemn fertility of the land. + +Megan closed her eyes and the amah gently let her slip back on the +seat. She opened her eyes to be sure that nothing had changed, for +already the train, the General, the lady, the door against which +leaned the orderly with the pink-silk cord, the window opening into +China, had become the accepted reality to which she clung. She tried +to stay awake. + +The General leaned back, blowing smoke rings, looking up meditatively +at the ceiling; the lady sat beside him, silent because he did not +wish to talk, but with an air of readiness as though her own possible +meditations were held only at his pleasure, never quite losing, even +when he was not looking at her, the lightly seductive smile with +which she turned to him when he spoke or even made a movement. + +Megan closed her eyes, opening them suddenly again. The General was +handing his cigarette to the lady to extinguish for him. He leaned +his head more firmly on the seat-back and closed his eyes. The lady +watched him and, seeing he did not appear comfortable, slipped an +embroidered satin pillow back of his head. He did not thank her, his +eyes remained closed and his head slipped forward slightly. +Apparently he was asleep. Megan watched him without restraint. His +hair, growing in a peak from the well-modeled forehead, was smooth +and black as a Spaniard's; with his eyes closed, their prominence, +the effect of the Mongolian slant, were exaggerated and some of the +masculinity of the face was lost, so that he looked like one of those +sculptured heads of androgynous Eastern deities. The lady also +watched him for a time to be quite sure he slept. Then she put a +smaller pillow behind her own head and closed her eyes. Even in her +sleep her smile, fragile and seductive, hovered on her lips. + +Megan slept and awoke with the certainty that she had slept long. + +"Oh, yes, that Chinese train." She was for a moment even frightened. +Some quality of the light had changed, it must be afternoon. Very +close to the window and throwing its shadow into the compartment +passed a great crenelated wall hung with tattered vines. A towered +water-gate made a fantastic opening in it. The lady had covered her +satin coat with a darker one trimmed with fur. The General with her +help was putting on a military overcoat. Then he bent down to look +out the window, yawned copiously and smoothed back his hair before +putting on his cap. The orderly came in to assemble the luggage. In +the corridor the soldiers were standing at attention, flattened +against the wall to make a passage. Seeing Megan was awake the lady +leaned over her. + +"We are here now," she said. "Your tiresome trip is over. Do you +feel well?" + +"Not too well." + +The General spoke to her in Chinese and after a few words she turned +again to Megan. + +"The General thinks it will be better for you not to walk through the +station. He will arrange to have you carried out in a chair. You +must be very quiet." + +"Where are we going? What general?" Megan was suddenly angry. "Who +is this general?" + +The lady's reply meant nothing until she had repeated it several +times over. Finally she penetrated the unfamiliar pronunciation, +"General Yen Tso-Chong." + +Doctor Strike's General. + +And the concubine. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XII + +It was an elaborate, brass bed enclosed on three sides and heaped +with bright satin quilts. Megan had been in it all the afternoon of +her arrival and all the next day. Now it was morning again. She had +wakened to a tumult of birds but they had quieted now and in spite of +certain small noises about the house the underlying stillness struck +her as remarkable. She moved her arms and legs tentatively and as +she held up one arm the white-silk sleeve of a Chinese coat fell back +from it, showing an ugly green bruise reaching almost from shoulder +to elbow. She examined her hands. They looked veined and tired. + +She could not distinctly remember how she had got here. Only a vague +impression of a station in which throngs of clamoring Chinese were +pushed aside to make way for her chair, a closed car with the +curtains down where she leaned her head on the shoulder of the lady +with the green coat. And they had driven perhaps half an hour, +perhaps less. Then she had stepped out before a gate in a red stucco +wall, had insisted she could walk and fainted. Since then she had +dozed or slept, waking to sip tea brought her by the amah and +sometimes by the lady. Now for the first time her head felt clear +and the pain in it was almost gone. + +She turned on one side and looked curiously at the room she was in. +It was rather bare. There were a few pieces of blackwood furniture, +differing at once from the blackwood pieces of the missionaries by an +air of unmistakable sophistication. By the octagon-shaped window, in +a dark blue bowl, bloomed a twisted miniature tree bearing +translucent yellow Chinese plum flowers. On the wall across from her +bed was a hanging painting on brownish silk of two dark, furry +monkeys eating orange-red persimmons. Megan looked at this a long +time. It was impossible not to feel in sympathy with these monkeys; +they pecked at the fruit so absently, they were so distrait, unable +to concentrate on anything, forever vaguely and obstinately pursued +by some great, mysterious sadness in all things, a sadness that not +caperings, malice, nor a full stomach could quite take away. It was +a true portrait, delicately executed, precise but summary; it gave +character to the whole room, making unimportant the offense of the +brass bed, the phonograph and records piled on a table, a gilt clock +and candlesticks empty of candles, such as one sees on the mantels of +cheaper French hotels. Yes, in spite of these things the room had an +appearance of style in the sense that a defective work of art may +still have style because whoever created it has been able to set on +it the seal of a superior personality. + +Megan liked the room, her father she thought would like it. And +suddenly she realized that her father at this very moment must be +believing her dead. Her parents' grief, Bob's grief, struck her too +vividly, with too strong an implication of reproach, to be endured. +Her headlong rush into this disaster blazed itself like a trail from +the moment when she had sat with Bob's letter on her knee and told +her parents that she had to go to China come what might, down to the +moment when she had demanded a miracle from God. The miracle had +come but already it had lost its sheen, as though it had been tossed +to her carelessly by One who knew that miracles are not always of +very great account. A depression began to settle over her because +she felt that she had been humiliated by something more profound even +than fear. Then she thought, "Well, perhaps it is all of no +importance, I am not dead. I will let them know it in the quickest +way possible. As soon as I can get a paper and pencil, write a note, +have a telegram sent. And after all, I am in China, where I felt I +had to be, and maybe I was even right." + +She thought of the General and his concubine, of all Doctor Strike +had told her about the General. Apparently for all the Doctor's +ardor, his knowledge, he had never been able really to touch the +General. And how much he had wanted to! All the time he had been +talking of him Megan felt she must have been half aware that she +herself had already touched the General's life by the mere brushing +of a wing and that she would inevitably touch it again more deeply. +Perhaps this was to be the miracle. + +She was too recently humbled to be willing to dwell much on this, but +in spite of herself vague and glorious pictures began slowly to flood +her mind. A Chinese man. A Chinese woman. Truly that was all of +China. Her pictures merged into sleep and she awoke again, +determined at once to get up. She sat on the edge of the bed and +waited until the dizziness and slight pain in her head passed. She +sat there wondering if the house she was in could possibly be in the +midst of a city. It was so quiet. In the early morning there had +been so many birds and even now the air coming in the open +octagon-shaped window was fresh and there was about it some +indefinite coolness, an aroma, as of water near by. Occasionally she +heard soft slippered feet cross a tiled or brick pavement outside her +window, and there was a telephone somewhere in the house that rang at +intervals, answered by a Chinese voice, monotonous and persistent. +But the telephone was not ringing just now. From a greater distance +she heard on a soft road the march of feet, then a staccato command. +The footsteps halted and at another command she heard the muffled +clatter of rifles as the company came to rest Bugles sounded and the +notes dissolved instantly like bubbles in the tranquillity of the +air. And from somewhere a cock crowed. Certainly she was not in a +city. + +Beside her bed on a small table was a wicker basket. She opened it +and found silver tea things kept warm by the wadded lining. She +poured herself a cup and drank it. When she put her feet to the +floor she had another moment of dizziness, but she was stronger than +she expected. She had to wait a moment until her head grew steadier. +Then she moved slowly and with shaking knees but she managed to reach +the window. + +It opened on a courtyard where flower-beds were set in patterns among +tiled walks. Willow trees, fragile and green, posed with an air of +artifice against the opposite wall, and there were three gray +boulders fretted by water into curious hollows and contours that were +placed like statues on gray stone pedestals. Over a low wall curving +like a dragon's back Megan could see another garden with a pine tree +in the center, growing in dark scaly strata, and beyond more tiles +and ornamented roofs of buildings. A round moon doorway led from her +court into the next and Megan decided it was all one estate, a series +of small houses connected by courts and gardens. Over one more +distant roof rose the bold, smoky blue outline of a low mountain, +giving a final secretiveness and intricacy to the small hidden +gardens. Megan leaned her elbows against the window and looked as +far around as she could. + +A servant crossing the court looked up and saw her, turned and ran +back into the house. In a moment the door behind her opened and the +lady who was the concubine of the General came in. She stood on the +threshold, holding her hands in a little conventional gesture of +surprise at seeing Megan up and about. + +"But you feel so well?" she asked. + +Megan said that she did. + +"Then you must have something to eat. You must be very weak. And +please sit down. Don't tire yourself." + +Megan sat down by the center table and the lady rang a bell near the +door. A servant appeared. + +"What would you like to eat?" the lady asked. "We can give you some +foreign food. Would you like ham and eggs and some fried potatoes +and toast? We can give you coffee too, if you prefer it to tea." + +"I'll have it all, please. I do feel rather desperately hungry." + +"Perhaps you would like to dress. I can only offer you my clothes. +Yours are very nearly ruined, though I have had amah mend them as +well as she can." + +"I believe I would feel better if I dressed. It is very kind of you +to offer me something of yours." + +The lady rang again and spoke to her amah. Presently the amah +returned with clothes and a toilet box which she and the lady set on +the table. They opened it and arranged its folding-mirror. There +were foreign brushes inside with silver backs. + +"You must use this box," said the lady. "I will leave it here with +you. And I will send you some soap. When you feel stronger and want +a bath, amah will help you, though we have only a Soochow tub. But +the coolie will bring all the hot water you want. You must ask for +anything you want." + +She stood behind her and watched attentively while Megan brushed her +hair into shape till it fitted her head like a thin dark cap. Then +she and the amah dressed her in a stiff coat of sulphur-yellow +brocade with a little Chinese collar and loose sleeves, the hybrid +dress of the treaty port. The amah put silk stockings on her feet +and slippers of satin, very pointed, with soft felt soles, a little +too small for comfort. The lady offered her the use of various +powders, eye pencils and lipsticks of French make, in all +colors--almond, rose, blue lilac and geranium--but Megan refused. +When they had finished with her she looked at herself, and the amah +and the lady peered over her shoulder into the glass. The long white +face and eyes heavily shadowed, the body enclosed in a rigid tube of +shining yellow, gave her a hieratic, Byzantine look. + +When the food came she ate ravenously, and the lady sat beside her, +her shell-like hands crossed neatly in her lap. + +"That is very good, that will make you strong again," she said. + +"Yes, it is delicious. I feel strong already." + +"I am so glad you are well again," and she added, "The General wants +to know when you are feeling well enough to receive him. He wants to +talk to you." + +The faint chill she felt at these words surprised Megan. She looked +about her. This room with the old painting, the blossoming plum, the +garden outside, herself in a costume for a fantastic portrait, these +were all still vaguely dreamlike. The General would instantly +introduce the note of reality and of struggle. She felt a reluctance +to take up life again. But she forced a little enthusiasm, because +the whole significance of things now lay in the General's being, in a +sense, delivered into her hands. + +"I suppose I feel well enough now, but don't go yet," she added +hastily, as the lady made a movement of rising. "Do stay and talk to +me. Tell me your name so that I will know what to call you." + +The lady sat back again, folding her hands in her lap with the +instant acquiescence of one accustomed to obey. + +"My name is Mah-li," she said. + +"Doctor Strike told me he had known you years ago in Soochow and that +you were brought up in a Mission school. Is that so?" + +Mah-li's eyes opened a little wider. + +"_Aiya!_ So you were with Doctor Strike, who wanted the body-guard!" +And she looked at Megan with an obvious wonder. Apparently she could +not imagine what had made Megan go into Chapei but was too courteous +to press the point, and Megan thought that to tell her it was to +rescue some women and children from the inhumanity of her countrymen +would be rude and slightly ridiculous. She felt already that her +relations with Mah-li would have to be conducted with more care than +she had so far been accustomed to expend on any one. There was a +line stretched between them that it was imperative neither should +cross, but whereas Mah-li saw the line clearly, Megan did not. + +"Yes, I remembered Doctor Strike," said Mah-li. "He is a very good +man. Every one in Soochow said he was a very good man." + +"He is a great friend of China," said Megan; "he admires China very +much." + +"Yes, he is a very good man," Mah-li repeated politely and +indifferently, and Megan was annoyed to see that measured on some +invisible scale of hers Doctor Strike did not weigh very heavily. +She would have liked to force an appreciation of Doctor Strike on +Mah-li but instead she said: + +"You must have learned your excellent English from the Mission. Did +you?" + +"Yes, I learned to speak English and to embroider and to cook and to +use a typewriter." + +"Really? That is splendid. I can't use a typewriter myself. Do +you--that is--do you do any typing ever?" + +"No. And I don't embroider." After a moment she added, "I don't +cook either." + +"Well, you speak English anyway!" Megan smiled heartily, a little +disconcerted by the apparent uselessness of Mah-li's foreign-learned +accomplishments. "It seems to be one of the benefits of education +that one learns a great deal for which one has no use. But it is all +training. It develops one, makes one more efficient." + +"More what?" said Mah-li. + +"Well, more able to handle whatever comes up. One doesn't always +know what one's needs are going to be. I don't think any training is +ever really lost." + +"No," said Mah-li and added, from pure politeness apparently, "A +Christian education is very nice." + +Megan was sure Mah-li was finding this conversation hopelessly dull, +her look of pleased curiosity had gone. She looked a little sleepy, +like a child. + +"Have you ever been to Soochow?" Mah-li asked. + +"No, I've just come to China. I've only been here a few days. I +came here to be married." + +"_Aiya!_" A gleam of interest returned to Mah-li's eyes. Her +eyebrows lifted perceptibly. "To Doctor Strike?" she asked. + +"No, no," Megan laughed. "Doctor Strike is old enough to be my +father!" It was the first reason she had thought of but she realized +at once it would be the least effective to Mah-li. And she again +felt a necessity for explaining her presence with the Doctor at the +North Station. But she gave it up. They would have plenty of other +times to talk and she sighed from sudden physical weariness. Mah-li +got instantly to her feet. A flicker rather like vexation crossed +her face. + +"I am afraid I tire you. I had better go." She spoke a little +stiffly and Megan had an impression of vanity revealed for a moment, +an attribute so unsuspected in Mah-li that she could not take in its +quality or extent. + +"I wish you wouldn't go," she protested. "You have been so kind to +me and I have had no chance to thank you properly." + +Mah-li smiled a little constrainedly and stood by; the table, resting +her finger-tips on it lightly, poised between going and staying. + +"Please do not thank me. I would be lacking in politeness to have +done otherwise. Besides," she added, "it was the General's wish. It +is he you must thank." + +Megan looked at her, surprised at the touch of malice in her voice. +It pleased Mah-li for some reason that she should now be dependent on +the General, even to a slight and fortuitous extent; not in any sense +comparable to Mah-li's dependence, which had the weight of five +thousand years behind it. For five thousand years there had been +Mah-lis, with fragile hands, with silks, with eyebrows in an imposed +line of fixed decorum. For what a short time indeed had there been +Megans, whose independence was so new, so slippery, and perhaps even +a little unstable. Megan took one of Mah-li's hands and pressed it +warmly. + +"I hope you will come and see me again," she said. + +Mah-li murmured, "Thank you," and went out. + +The servant came in and cleared away the remains of her breakfast. +Megan took a chair over by the window and sat where she could look +out. + +Her interview with Mah-li had not been satisfactory, but it was the +first she had ever had with a Chinese and it would have been foolish +to expect much from it. Soldiers were drilling on the road somewhere +beyond the walls, in the house the telephone rang and the Chinese +voice answered it monotonously and persistently. Perhaps an hour +passed, but Megan was scarcely conscious of it; the minutes passed +over her like soundless waves that never break, flowing from an +unimaginably distant source. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XIII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XIII + +Some one knocked at the door. Megan said, "Come in" several times +before it was opened. The young orderly with the salmon-pink silk +cord about his neck stood in the doorway. He said something she did +not understand, stood aside, and after a perceptible moment the +General came into the room. He walked over to her and, clicking his +heels together in the proper manner, bowed. He carried his cap under +his arm. + +"Good morning," he said. "I hope you are better." + +"Yes, much better." + +He drew up another chair to the window and when he was seated took +out a gold cigarette case. He was smiling in a conventional manner +with little nods of the head as he offered her a cigarette. + +"I have Turkish and Virginia tobacco." + +It had occurred to her that this meeting might be to him as startling +in its novelty as to her. The assurance gave her more confidence. +She took a cigarette from him and the General snapped a gold briquet +(he was really most opulently provided), lighting first her cigarette +then his. + +"Are you quite comfortable here?" he asked. "Do you like this room?" + +"Yes, it is very nice. I have been enjoying the view of the garden. +And that painting on the wall, I admire that very much." + +"Do you? I am glad, because I like it too." The General turned in +his chair to look at it. "It is by an artist of the early Ming +dynasty. It is not very old as things are old here in China. But I +always take it with me. It possesses a great variety and excellence +of brush stroke." + +They smoked in silence, neither looking directly at the other. A +large ash fell on to Megan's lap. + +"I will send you ash-trays," said the General. "You must excuse this +house. I use it now as my yamen, but it is not my house. It is the +pleasure house of a friend of mine." + +"Is it in town?" + +"No, it is on the lake. You will see by and by, it is a very +beautiful location." + +There was another silence. The General looked so fixedly at the end +of his cigarette that Megan was able to look at him. He was smaller +than she realized, his gray uniform fitted dapperly over a shoulder +too plump, there was a smoothness about his skin and hair that was +unpleasant to her, and even his hands were faintly repellent by their +abnormal delicacy. + +He said suddenly, as though he had been turning it over and had come +to a decision, "I want to assure you again that you are quite safe in +my house. I don't want you to feel that you are in an equivocal +position." + +"Why insist so?" thought Megan. "I would have felt no concern over +my safety if he hadn't brought it up." She looked at him more +sharply and was disconcerted to realize she could be so affected by a +physical repugnance. She was quite unprepared both for the +repugnance and its effect. + +"I feel," she said, "I am in a position requiring an explanation." + +The General raised his eyebrows a little and his eyes appeared +absurdly prominent. + +"But your position is very mysterious to me! I myself don't know why +I should find you in Chinese territory, early in the morning, +surrounded by an unfriendly crowd, from whom incidentally I saved +you." + +"I know you saved me. I am grateful to you for that, but I had a +perfect right to be in Chinese territory. I had a safe-conduct pass +signed by you." + +"By me!" The General's eyes began to show amusement and +astonishment. "By me! Then is it possible Doctor Strike was with +you?" + +"Yes, we were together. He was struck on the head by a coolie with a +carrying-pole. I got him in a rickshaw and it went off with him. I +was left behind but it was not his fault, he was unconscious. We +also had with us five children and two women from St. Andrew's +Orphanage in Chapei. But Doctor Strike explained all this to you. +We were relying, as I said, on a safe-conduct pass signed by you." + +"Ah, these safe-conduct passes!" The General waved them aside with +one hand. "You people expect too much of them. Do you suppose the +coolie who struck Doctor Strike knew of your pass, or would have +respected it if he had?" + +Megan waited to see if he would express any concern over Doctor +Strike's fate, but that aspect of it did not seem to occur to him. +She said rather bitterly: + +"I see now your safe-conduct was worthless. But I did not know at +the time. You see, I have lived all my life in a country where if a +situation comparable to this were possible, such a pass would be +effective. The whole training and temper of the people would make it +so." + +The General looked at her, doubtful how to take this. + +"Do you speak seriously?" he asked. "Where is this country you are +talking about that has no mob spirit, no race hatred, but only a +perfect respect for law and authority? I had supposed you were an +American." + +Megan realized too late that she had been carried away, and +simultaneously that she must not be carried away again. It was she +and not he who had given way to a sense of antagonism. + +"I am sorry," she said hastily. "I am afraid I was too rhetorical. +Yes, I am an American." + +He acknowledged her withdrawal with a nod, slight enough not to +attach undue importance to it. + +"I have never been to America," he said gently, "but I have lived in +England for a time and in France and Germany. Are you also, like +Doctor Strike, a missionary?" + +"No. But I came out to be married to one of the doctors at Changsha, +at Yale-in-China." + +"Ah, yes. Well, I am glad you are not a missionary, even if you are +to become one." + +"Why?" said Megan. "Do you dislike them?" + +"No," said the General. "Only I have found few agreeable friends +among them." + +"Doctor Strike however admires you greatly." + +"I greatly admire Doctor Strike, though I must say I was rather +relieved when he decided to leave my province. He was too much like +an atom of radium locked in a desk drawer. Yes, I had been wondering +all along if you were not with Doctor Strike or in some way connected +with that orphanage. But what did you go with him for? I don't +understand it. For the excitement perhaps?" + +Megan did not answer and he shook his head, smiling as if he found +her an impossible subject for analysis. + +"When Doctor Strike asked me for the famous safe-conduct pass," he +continued, "I didn't want to give it to him because I felt sure he +would put too great a strain upon it. He found me, as perhaps he +told you, in a Shanghai hotel dining with some friends, and he urged +me at a time when I could not well refuse. You see, I was not +supposed to be in the European sections of Shanghai. At the time you +saw me I was going in under a false name as a prominent official of +the Northern government, a man who, unknown to the authorities, was +at that moment actually dead. When Doctor Strike found me I had +completed the negotiation I came for, but it would still have been +very unpleasant for me to have been obliged to explain my presence to +the foreign authorities. Of course as soon as the Doctor began to +urge me, I thought of the position I was in. But I am quite sure it +never occurred to the Doctor to make use of it to get his pass. No, +I am quite sure he never thought of it for a moment." The General +stopped to smile at this further aspect of the comedy. + +Megan looked at him intently. "Yes," she said, with an insistence on +each word, "I am sure he was not only unwilling but even incapable of +betraying you." + +The General's smile became inquiring; he looked at her a moment, then +let his gaze wander toward the ceiling as he did when he wished to +withdraw his attention from the more immediate considerations. He +grew deeply thoughtful and she had the satisfaction of seeing his +urbanity appear to be invaded by a sudden, sharp uncertainty. But he +dismissed that. + +"When I spoke of the situation in which I could not very well +refuse," he went on to explain, "I meant that Doctor Strike was in a +fair way to spoil the gaiety of the party my friends were giving me. +He is the sort of man who would infallibly respect one's grief but be +incapable of respecting one's gaiety. That would have been +regrettable. I wanted very much to get rid of him. I wrote him the +pass on the back of a menu card. It was the only paper available +except a bill from the hotel and I chose it because it had a design +of Kuomintang flags at the top. Yes, my host is very Europeanized. +He not only believes that menus are desirable as stimulating the +appetite and perhaps falsifying the origins of certain dishes but he +believes in the sacredness of a flag. And I too at that moment, +perhaps under the influence of a beneficent champagne, believed that +if my safe-conduct pass were to have any efficacy, it would be due to +those flags!" + +Megan did not answer. She could not decide whether he was trying to +offend her or if, unable in this novel situation to achieve the +proper balance and perhaps a little fearful lest she attempt to bully +him, he was only making futile alternate gestures of courtesy and +warning. + +"My friends," he said, "knew I was leaving the city at a certain +hour; so, because of the extreme merriment of the party, they +themselves accompanied me to the station. When I got there I found +you being handled very roughly by the crowd around the gate. A +coolie was hitting you on the head with a carrying-pole. It must +have been the coolie you said struck Doctor Strike a moment before. +He was probably emboldened by his success in felling the Doctor. I +had my guard extricate you. And then I really had no idea what to do +with you. I have explained to you that for various reasons I had to +leave without involving myself in explanations with the foreign +authorities. I was already in Chinese territory, my train was +waiting, so I brought you along. As soon as I can make suitable +arrangements you shall return. In the meantime you must consider +yourself my guest." + +Megan thought for a moment before answering him. He had not said a +single unreasonable word. Except for the anxiety for her parents, +for which he was hardly responsible, she was glad to be here. She +had no thought that she was in any personal danger; on the contrary +it was she herself who was the disruptive element in the midst of a +long-established plan. The prospect of troubling all this false +security filled her with excitement and genuine pleasure, yet she was +at the same time on the verge of anger. Surely she was not really +disturbed by so trivial a thing as the nearness of a stridently alien +flesh; perhaps it was the pressure and the will to dominate of an +alien mind. + +The General in his turn, she could feel it, was taking advantage of +her abstraction to scrutinize her more closely. She threw her +cigarette out the window and turned to him. + +"I see I owe you a great deal," she said; "please forgive me for not +being more gracious about it. The truth is I am still a bit +bewildered." + +"That is quite natural. It must be bewildering to you to wake up +unexpectedly in China." + +"By the way, there is something I would like to ask you to do for me +that will put my mind very much at rest." + +The General nodded. + +"It is to send a telegram to Shanghai to my friends there so that +they can let my parents and the man I came here to marry know I am +safe." + +"The parents and the bridegroom! But certainly I will send one at +once. In all probability they believe you dead. Now there will be +rejoicing, even though they will not be able to think so ill of us as +they might have liked." + +"I feel sure," said Megan stiffly, "that in this case they will be +glad to be mistaken." + +"No doubt at all. And I shall see about reassuring them at once." +He leaned toward her, his cigarette case held open, but Megan shook +her head. + +"No more, thanks." + +"As it turns out," said the General, tapping a cigarette on his +thumb-nail and slowly lighting it, "as it turns out I shall not be +able to arrange for your return immediately. An incident occurred at +Nanking, at the same time I brought you here, which has aroused so +much feeling, both among my people and among yours, that I do not yet +know what will come of it." + +"What sort of incident?" + +"In capturing the city of Nanking the troops of General Chen Chien +got a little out of hand. War, you know, does not bring out the best +qualities of tolerance and self-control; that is one reason why we +Chinese are so unfitted for it." + +"But what was the incident?" + +"A number of people were shot and some were killed, missionaries +largely, Doctor Williams of the Nanking College, some ladies, the +British Consul too, I believe." + +"Shot by Chinese?" + +"By troops, yes." + +"But that is an outrage!" cried Megan, overwhelmed with anger. "We +are not at war with you!" + +"No? Well, at any rate your gunboats, in retaliation, fired on the +unarmed, civilian population of Nanking, killing hundreds. But after +all, why should you and I talk about it?" + +"I don't believe they fired on the civilian population, or if they +did, they must have been forced into it." + +The General shrugged his shoulders. + +"We will get nowhere by discussing this. It would only drag us both +into the vulgarity of open anger. I will send you some Shanghai +papers which have just come to me. You can read there all your own +point of view." + +But if the General was not already angry, he was agitated. His hand +holding the cigarette shook nervously. This shaking hand made Megan +realize how near she herself had come to losing control, perhaps +irreparably. What about all the vast misery of China which had in no +wit changed? What about the word of God that was to illumine the +drowsy twilight of its spirit? Christianity had always spread to an +inevitable accompaniment of bloodshed, its own and, it must be +admitted, that of others. But the loss of life was not to be +considered in the saving of a soul. Life, blood, flesh, were +nothing; the spirit everything. Megan sat with clinched hands, and +while for several moments neither she nor the General had said a +word, she was as exhausted as though they had been engaged in a +mortal struggle. + +"Yes, you are right," she said. "We won't talk about that. I want +as a matter of fact to see your point of view as far as I can. I +believe I can do it better when you don't argue with me." + +The General smiled suddenly and taking out his handkerchief wiped his +forehead. + +"Delightful," he murmured. "Do you know," he said, "for a moment you +quite terrified me. There is something about the European eye, I +can't explain the effect it has on me. It gets so--large." He +returned his handkerchief carefully to its pocket. "But I am glad +you are trying not to think too ill of us." + +Megan's cheeks still burned and her voice was still a little husky. + +"Oh, we don't really think ill of you. Certainly not in America. On +the contrary we like to sentimentalize over your superiority to +ourselves. Haven't you noticed that attitude in England too? +Peace-loving exquisites, passionate over tea, philosophy and +calligraphy, that is how we like to think of you." + +The General seized with relief this diversion into a wider field. + +"And aren't we that?" + +"I know nothing about your actual tastes. But as to peace, the +country never seems to have known it. And any one can see that your +philosophy has never brought you good government, justice, or an +equal distribution of happiness." + +"Our poor philosophy! So you demand it give us good government, +justice, and an equal distribution of happiness? But you seem to +think it is a safe-conduct pass! Haven't you people rather a mania +for drastic remedies? I have observed that you are very prone to +attach yourself to one thing like religion, or democracy, or even +proper sanitation, and believe that it will cure all. Our philosophy +enables us to support life in the only way it can be supported, by an +endless series of compromises; successful compromises, perfectly +adjusted to our temperament. That is surely a great deal for a +philosophy, don't you think so? It is even a great deal for a +religion. But," he added, "you are right in supposing we are +peace-loving. In the real China we have always been predominantly +agriculturists. A farmer's life is bound down to his plot of earth. +He doesn't need to fight like the herder for new pasture grounds, or +the trader for new markets. So war is not the result of our deeper +necessities and certainly not of our inclinations. We fight because +the corruption of our officials forces us to. But even then we run +as often as we fight, which proves, as Bertrand Russell says, that we +are rational men, because what we fight for is not worth our death." + +"It is arguable whether there are not some things worth dying for, +even if you have failed to discover them." Megan tried also to speak +lightly. "So I am right as to your being peace-loving. And as to +tea, is it true you drink only that?" + +She remembered then that Doctor Strike had said he had found the +General very drunk, even the General had admitted his weakness, and +was sorry she had spoken, but the General said pleasantly: + +"In our period of greatest civilization we drank wine, and those who +could afford it drank it to excess. Only savages and animals +practise sobriety, continence and moderation. Yes, our greatest poet +was drowned in an attempt to catch the moon in the river. I saw once +in a private collection in England--so much of our art has gone +abroad--a very charming painting of Yang Kwei Fei, who was a great +beauty of the Tang dynasty. She is holding a wine-cup and the legend +says, 'Yang Kwei Fei, drunk but still drinking.'" + +"I wonder if you can be typical," said Megan. "What you say is very +confusing." + +"I don't want to tire you with discussions, when you are just up." +The General got up and threw his cigarette out of the window. "But I +do not see why I should be typical. Fortunately for our +entertainment, men of the same race don't resemble each other, as +ants resemble ants, or tigers tigers. Though it might prove more +convenient in the matter of international relations if we did. Then +we could all behave toward each other without compunction, in the +simple brutality of the animal world." + +He held out his hand to her and Megan shook it carefully as though +she were handling porcelain. + +"I will send word to Shanghai at once," he said. "And by the way, I +don't yet know your name." + +"My name is Megan Davis, Miss Davis. If you will send word to Mr. +Jackson, of the China Inland Mission, and ask him to notify my family +and friends I shall be very grateful." + +"Will you please spell all that?" said the General, and he wrote it +down in a little note-book he carried in one pocket. When he had +closed it again he said very formally, in a high strange voice, as if +he were making an official proclamation: + +"There is at present only one female in my household. If you have no +repugnance for her society she will be glad to visit you from time to +time. I myself am very busy with the political situation in my +province." + +"Of course I have no repugnance," Megan exclaimed. "She has been +very kind and I think she is charming." + +"Then she will come again whenever you wish. She speaks English +well." + +He took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and smoothed his +hair before putting on his cap. His gesture was eloquent of relief +from a considerable strain. He gave her a slight salute and walked +over to the door. + +"Good morning," he said, clicking his heels together. + +"Good morning," said Megan. + +The orderly with the salmon-pink cord, who had been waiting just +outside, opened the door for him and he went out. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XIV headpiece] + +CHAPTER XIV + +Megan spent the rest of the day on the bed or sitting by the window. +She felt no desire to leave her room to see what was beyond the tiled +roofs, to meet half-way any new experience. The peace of the +General's yamen began to act as a soporific on her nerves. The one +sound that persisted, the distant ringing of the telephone and the +Chinese voice, became part of the silence. Only once she heard +violent noises outside, which proved to be the amah hysterically +haranguing one of the servants, but seeing Megan looking at her from +the window the amah smiled as if to assure her that it was nothing +serious, and the quiet became even deeper than before. + +Late in the day they brought her some Chinese food, rice and +concoctions of meat and fish, bamboo shoots, cabbage, bean sprouts +and soy sauce, served in delicate bowls veined like thin flesh. +Megan ate adventurously and found it represented a whole new scale of +flavors, as outside her experience as the tones of a Chinese musical +scale, so that her hunger remained mysteriously unsatisfied. + +She was lying on the bed when a knock at the door made her sit up. +The orderly with the Mauser on the salmon-pink cord opened the door +but instead of the General a much younger and smaller man in the +uniform of an officer came into the room. + +As without a word he walked over to the table, Megan looked at him +with astonishment. She saw that his body and hands appeared to +belong to a very young girl, his face suggested the texture of _pâte +tendre_ and his black eyes and eyebrows were outlined with +exaggerated precision above cheeks that surely had a trace of rouge. +If he had been an actor, he would have excelled as an impersonator in +female rôles. Evidently he spoke no English for as he put down on +the table a roll of papers, a carton of cigarettes, a box of matches +and an ash-tray, he said something in Chinese, then bowed and with a +smile of thin sweetness turned and went out. If the papers and +cigarettes had not been there to prove his reality, Megan would +almost have believed him to be an apparition. + +They were the Shanghai papers promised by the General. She lay back +on the bed to read them. There were pages about the Nanking +incident, but for fear she might become angered again, Megan looked +only at the head-lines. It was when she saw her name at the head of +a column that she felt a sudden sharp excitement. + + TRAGIC INCIDENT IN RESCUE OF ST. ANDREW'S + ORPHANAGE. YOUNG FIANCÉE OF DOCTOR + LOSES LIFE NEAR NORTH STATION. + + +She read an account of what had happened, what had so nearly happened. + + + "... The last of the four rickshaws contained Doctor Strike, who + was unconscious when they reached the Range Road Barricade. He + remembers only being hit on the head, as he was about to put Miss + Davis into the fourth rickshaw. He is convinced that she + sacrificed her life to save his as only she could have got him + into the rickshaw. The other members of the party were unaware + of what had happened to Miss Davis and they only discovered at + the Range Road Barricade that she was not following them. On + hearing their story five Durhams, who were among the guard at the + barricade, made a hasty impromptu raid into Chinese territory. + But when they reached the North Station there was no trace of + Miss Davis. They spoke no Chinese and could get no information + from the bystanders. They were reluctantly obliged to return. + It is almost certain that she was killed and that the crowd, + through fear or anger, made some immediate and unthinkable + disposition of the body. Every effort is being made to recover + it however, through the Nationalist authorities, who disclaim all + responsibility and knowledge of what occurred." + + +Megan put down the paper, feeling that she had perpetrated a fraud on +the world. Still, death had come very close to her, and if she were +not actually dead and no longer in danger, she was at least alone as +she had never been. Unlike the bewildering loneliness one feels in +the midst of crowds, or the terrible loneliness one feels at times +with those one loves, this loneliness was profoundly exhilarating. +It meant that she had been, for the time, stripped of her tradition +and her place in the world, cut off from the physical support of her +parents' love and of Bob's. It was not the eerie loneliness of the +spirit. It was a challenge. + +Megan lay back, her hands clasped behind her head, and the Shanghai +papers slipped one by one to the floor. Half asleep she dreamed of a +golden province, a province of peace, order and universal happiness, +ruled over by the heroic image of General Yen Tso-Chong. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XV headpiece] + +CHAPTER XV + +The next morning she felt very much better, and after her European +breakfast she decided to go out into the garden. No one had told her +to keep to her room. As she opened her door she saw Mah-li, in a +little furred cape, crossing the outside room. Mah-li stopped. + +"Good morning." + +"Good morning, Mah-li." + +"You are going out?" + +"Yes, to the garden," said Megan. "I feel I would like a breath of +air." + +"Do you want to come with me then? I am going into the city to buy +some things." + +"I would love to." + +Mah-li hesitated. + +"Only I am not going to drive in the automobile, I am going in a +chair, because the streets where I am going are so narrow. Perhaps +you wouldn't like that." + +"I would like it all the better." + +"Come along then and I will order another chair." + +Megan went with Mah-li across the flagged court she had seen from her +window and through a room furnished with heavy American metal office +furniture, with calendars, Chinese and English, large wall-maps, and +on one table a dark blue, glazed bowl with a twisted skein of yellow +plum. A few officers sat about, and Megan saw the telephone she had +heard ringing all during the day. A soldier sat before it with a pad +on the table beside him, and when he was not engaged in telephoning, +he drew pictures on the pad. They went on to an open space of bare +dirt and a few trees, where platoons of soldiers were being drilled +by a smart young gray-clad officer. They were of all ages, some, +Megan was sure, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. She +recognized the gate in the red stucco wall through which she had +come. They passed around the spirit screen, through the gate, and +stood in the roadway that followed the shore of the lake. Mah-li's +chair was waiting, and while the coolies in dark blue livery went off +to get a second chair Megan looked about her. + +The lake was so near that just across the road stone steps led down +into it, under a great stone pailou with four columns. The sky was +cloudy, the water of the lake milky white, darkened by fleets of +little islands connected by shapely half-moons of bridges, or +causeways, planted in trees; low mountains hemmed it in with delicate +but firm corves of blue and fainter, smokier gray. At its far end +Megan could see the town, and all around the shores a succession of +gardens and groves from which rose low, tiled roofs of pleasure +houses. Before the yamen a backwater formed by a bend of the shore +was filled with drifts of lotus plants. She turned to look behind +the yamen where the hills were very close. On one of them stood the +trunk of a pagoda, shorn of all its roofs and bells, out of the top +of which sprouted a ferny growth. Megan was overcome by beauty, for +which nothing that Doctor Strike or the General had said had +adequately prepared her, but she thought she recognized in it +nevertheless a quality similar to that of the landscape seen from the +train. The one line that drew the eye upward was that of the pagoda +trunk, which even without its upturned eaves struck a note of +intended levity amid the great, flowing, earth-bound curves which +circled and so completely enclosed the horizon. + +When the chair came Megan climbed in and Mah-li recommended that she +let down the small blinds before the windows on either side so that +her appearance would create no comment in the streets. The coolies +picked up the poles and started off with a peculiar jouncing motion +that gave Megan a headache. Every now and then at a cry they stopped +and shifted the poles to the other shoulder. She drew her blind back +a little so as to look at the lake. As they crossed one of the +causeways, planted in trees, they passed through more platoons of +soldiers marching in goose step, absurdly unmilitary creatures, with +ingenuous smiling faces. On the left side of the road were garden +walls enclosing summer-houses and gardens, most of them of ox-blood +red, with undulating dragon tops and odd-shaped windows elaborately +latticed. They came to the outskirts of the town, to narrow lanes +between small shops and whitewashed blank walls, sometimes with great +black characters painted on them, lanes so narrow they jostled +against the coolies with their carrying-poles. The streets grew more +crowded and noisy. Megan held open only a crack of space between the +blind and the window so that she saw in too quickly passing glimpses. +The sun came out and the chair began to get uncomfortably warm. + +In a street in the heart of the town they stopped and got out. Megan +followed Mah-li into a shop through a wide portal of profusely carved +and gilded wood. In the gloom hundreds of jars on shelves around the +wall looked down at them like great glaucous eyes. + +"This is a medicine shop," Mah-li told her. "One of the famous +medicine shops of China. I take Chinese medicines always. I am +afraid of foreign doctors." + +"I hope you are not ill." + +"I have a pain here that comes and goes, especially after I have +eaten a big meal." And Mah-li, opening her cape, laid her hand +wistfully over a section of her green satin coat. + +"Dear me, I hope it is not serious." + +The place was full of a pungent but stale medicinal odor as +unfamiliar as the flavor of Chinese dishes; it suggested roots and +herbs brewed a long time in ancient pots. In the close air of the +place it was overpowering. They crossed an open court where Megan +stopped to admire the intricate carving of the woodwork, angles of +temples and pavilions, all smothered in dense foliage, from which +peered tiny faces of men and animals, smiling from a serene secret +world. Inside the next building a clerk brought her a high blackwood +stool, where she sat while Mah-li made her purchases. For the pain +that came after a large dinner she was apparently buying all the +drugs in China. A clerk figured up her account on an abacus. + +"Would you like to see more of the shop?" asked Mah-li. + +Megan said yes, though she was giddy and tired. She followed Mah-li +into more rooms and across more courts, where unexpected sunlight cut +through the gloom in blue smoky shafts. At the end of a tunnel-like +passage Megan sniffed amid all the dead odors a sudden drift of musk, +savage and alive. In the court beyond were wooden barred cages along +the walls, in which large deer stood amid heaps of dirty straw, +looking out with beautiful eyes full of fear and a certain disdain. + +"Oh, I love them!" She leaned against the bars, but they were quite +wild, they would not come to her hand stretched confidingly toward +them. + +"I hope they are not going to kill them." + +But no one answered her and turning she saw Mah-li had left. She +looked across the open court where coolies, naked to the waist, +pounded something in a mortar, and saw in the dusk behind them the +satin gleam of Mah-li's collar. Megan did not know whether to join +her or not. She made several further attempts to attract the deer +and turning was about to follow Mah-li when she saw that a man was +with her. They were so absorbed in what they said to each other that +distance condensed heavily between her and them and they seemed to +stand unattainably far. She stopped abruptly, and waiting, listened +to the low murmur of their unknown words. Presently they separated +and their heads, bowed in the repeated noddings of a ceremonious +farewell, were caught for a moment and illumined by a common shaft of +sunlight. Their delicate faces, their narrow eyes fixed on each +other in a locked and grave attention, glowed like those of +marionette lovers in a fairy play. Mah-li's companion was the +exquisite apparition who had brought Megan the cigarettes and +Shanghai papers. + +Mah-li returned to her slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground. She +lifted her head and her look collided sharply with Megan's curious +gaze. "That was Captain Li," she said, "the General's aide." + +Her eyes reminded Megan of the deer's eyes, holding a little of fear +and a great deal of scorn, the scorn of a simple organism for a more +complicated one. Megan felt a slight uneasiness. + +"Oh, yes," she replied vaguely. "Tell me, do they kill these deer?" + +"No," said Mah-li, after a slight pause in which she turned to look +negligently at the deer, "they use the horns only." + +They left the medicine shop and once more got into their chairs. +Megan wondered if the shopping tour had been entirely for the sake of +that meeting. Having seen them together she could not doubt that +Mah-li and Captain Li were lovers, and yet she was not entirely +shocked. The relation of the General and Mah-li seemed to her quite +as irregular. She knew that this relation was only the outgrowth of +a patriarchal state of society, but she was inclined to look on the +man's side of it as tyrannical and an abuse of privilege. As to its +romantic importance she felt that it could not measure up in any way +to what she had read in the attentive faces of Mah-li and Captain Li. +But she realized her inability to weigh values with any such scales, +she knew that from a lack of experience she looked on all such +relations in a literary, a decorative, an unbrutal sense. + +Mah-li stopped at one other shop where they sold fans. She bought a +black one with a multitude of tiny brilliant figures on one side and +gold characters on the other. In selecting it she had them bring out +quantities of fans while Megan sat beside her looking on. Mah-li did +not speak to her, she was very much occupied with the fans. She +carried an elaborate French purse, from one of the Russian shops of +Shanghai, one of green spangles with a marcasite clasp. She was very +proud of this and left it lying under piles of fans, so that she lost +sight of it and then had it searched for and finally recovered after +some confusion. + +When the fan had been wrapped in cottony paper she stood looking at +it, then suddenly handed it to Megan. "I would like to give this to +you," she said. "Will you please accept it?" + +Megan was not expecting this and said rather briefly: "Thank you." +When she got into her chair she looked at the fan thoughtfully. + +Megan grew tired and very giddy as they made their way along in the +enclosed chairs, and an emanation a little sickening began to steam +up from the close-packed crowd about her. It struck her immediately +and instinctively as a certain cruelty, though she could not place it +very definitely unless it was in the overcrowding of any confined +city, where the relentless fecundity of the population continues to +turn out more human beings than there is need for. She felt it +strongly however in the straining back muscles of her bearers, in the +heads of the little scrambling children dusted with powder and +plastered with paper seals over deep ulcers, and finally she heard it +in the music of a wedding procession, in the midst of which rode the +bride in her sealed, red satin chair, music that was acrid, +irritating, aphrodisian. It was a great relief when they left the +city and came out on the open shore of the lake. The sun was +streaming through openings in the clouds and breaking into light and +shadow the sustained lines of the mountains and the curving shore. +Megan drew up the blind so that the cooler, cleaner air bathed her +head. + +At the yamen Mah-li took her into one of the gardens a little way up +the hillside, where in a stone pavilion were benches and a center +table. + +"I know you would like tea," she said. "They will bring it here to +us." + +Megan leaned her head against a pillar and closed her eyes. The air +was full of the watery smell of the lake, and fatigue that was almost +an appeasement flowed over her. She heard the General's voice and +opened her eyes. He stood just outside the pavilion as if he had +stopped on his way through the garden. + +"Have you been to the city?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"You must not tire yourself. Remember, you are very important to me, +I cannot return you in anything but good condition." + +"I suppose you mean I am now a sort of demonstration of your good +behavior." + +"Just about that. By the way, you got the Shanghai papers?" + +"Yes. Thanks very much." + +"I suppose you enjoyed the experience of reading about yourself all +those extravagant things that are only said when one is dead?" + +"I don't believe I enjoyed it. I kept thinking how dreadful it must +be for my family to have to read these things. And then, it wasn't +right somehow." + +"When I was a child," said Mah-li, "I was very sick once and every +one thought I would die. So every one at the Mission was very kind +to me, especially people that had never been kind to me before. Even +the very cruel embroidery mistress brought me a large peony and laid +it on my pillow. But when I got better they were all just as they +had always been and the embroidery mistress made me work harder than +ever." + +Megan watched Mah-li with a smile, as we watch children whose +gestures are so pretty, whose motives are so helplessly transparent, +that even their vanity, greed and deceit have the charm of being +reduced in scale and harmless. It seemed to her that her smile was +shared by the General. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XVI headpiece] + +CHAPTER XVI + +Megan slept out the rest of the afternoon until well after dark. At +about nine o'clock she ate again and while she was eating the +General's orderly brought her a note. + + + "My dear Miss Davis [she read], will you not join us in a little + game of cards, with which we are trying to pass the evening + hours?" + + +She was about to refuse but thought that perhaps over the friendly +relaxation of cards she might go far toward winning the confidence of +the General and Mah-li. + +She followed the orderly into the outer room and across the court +into a room where at a table under a light sat the General, Captain +Li, Mah-li and a man she had not seen before. He got up as Megan +came in and walked around the table to shake hands with her. He was +a stout man, with a red face merging into a bald head; his eyes were +clear, childlike, blue, and when he smiled at her his teeth were the +most dazzling and regular she had ever seen. His smile gave a sudden +ingenuousness to a face gross and inexpressive. His clothes of an +American business man were light gray, lately pressed and foppish. + +"I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Davis. I am the General's +financial adviser, Mr. Shultz. I've already heard a lot about you +from the General." He looked steadily at her as he spoke and there +was a not too faint insolence in his look. + +Megan, a little dazed, murmured: + +"How do you do." + +The General said: + +"Good evening, Miss Davis. We are playing poker; as it's an American +game I thought you might like to join us." + +"No, thank you, I'll look on," said Megan. "I don't play poker. And +besides I have no money." + +"I'll be glad to carry you," suggested Mr. Shultz. His voice was a +fine tenor, marred by the looseness and indecision of his accent. + +"It's just a little friendly game," he added, "the kind of friendly +game where you gotta lose to the General. Captain Li and I'll be out +a few thousand before the evening is over." + +"I think I'll watch." + +Megan sat down in a vacant chair by Mah-li, who was delicately +dealing the cards. + +"But do you play?" she asked her. + +Mr. Shultz had sat down opposite them. + +"Sure she plays," he said. "All these girls play and Mah-li is a +terror. She is the only one here dares get money off the General." + +Megan watched them. Beside the delicate small-boned Chinese faces, +with their shallow shadows, the face of Mr. Shultz was as unformed as +a lump of baking-dough. There was a glass of whisky and soda beside +him and he handled this and his cards with the clumsiness, the surety +of a derrick hoisting a load of gravel. His stubby nails were highly +manicured and he wore a large diamond ring. The game progressed, +punctuated by a few ejaculations. Every now and then Mr. Shultz +looked up at Megan with a cold curiosity, unquickened by any +sympathy. It was obvious that he did not approve of her being here, +and whatever the circumstances that brought her, she should certainly +have managed to avoid them. Megan read this opinion definitely in +one of his slow glances and she met his judgment with an equally +visible scorn. She did not in her turn approve of his being here. +The financial adviser to a Chinese general indeed! Perhaps he was +one reason why the finances of the province were shrouded in such +disrepute. It seemed to her a bitter irony that the General should +have rejected a man like Doctor Strike only to fall into the hands of +Mr. Shultz. She saw the General looking from one to the other of +them with a faint smile. It had perhaps amused him to bring them +together, capable of discerning, as he certainly was, some of the +differences that must lie between them, in spite of their common +tongue. His amusement became so apparent on his face that Mr. +Shultz, looking up, saw it. His blue eyes hardened and for a moment +this lump of flesh, without having made a movement, became +formidable. The General's smile grew abstracted. + +"Well, Miss Davis," said Mr. Shultz in a more friendly tone, "you're +a newcomer here I take it." + +"Yes, indeed." + +"How long you been in China?" + +"Several days only." + +"Several days! Well, this is a strange situation, finding yourself +in a place like this." + +"Is it? Yet I'm sure plenty of missionaries have found themselves +from time to time in Chinese families." + +"Missionaries! Maybe. But then they do lots of things a lady like +you wouldn't think of." + +"They are much more courageous than I, if that is what you mean." + +"Well, that isn't exactly what I mean. Sweeten up here everybody, +sweeten up." + +He began to deal the cards out heavily and surely. The General sat +back in his chair watching him as if he had been a juggler hired for +the evening. + +"I used to be in the Customs," said Mr. Shultz, "the outdoor Customs. +I was inspecting a ship once sailing for Amoy and way down in the +hold, among all the Chinese passengers, was a black-haired girl, +lying on a bunk reading a Chinese book. She was the best-looking +girl I ever saw anywhere in my life. Her hair was all slicked down +and she had on trousers and a little coat. Her feet were large but I +didn't notice that then. I leaned against the bulkhead and looked +hard at her, but she only went on turning the pages very carefully, +till finally I couldn't stand it any longer. I said, 'Honey, who +belong your master?' Well, the moment she looked up I saw I was +wrong, but before I could get away she said loud and clear, 'Christ +is my master,' so I said, 'Then I beg your pardon,' and shoved off. +But I certainly couldn't approve of that girl, traveling in Chinese +quarters in Chinese clothes and all. Missionary, of course. They +always used to dress and live Chinese." + +"What an extraordinary anecdote," said the General, and not the hard +look which Mr. Shultz gave him could quite banish the delighted smile +from his face, "and it proves that in reality you are only capable of +being attracted by what is familiar to you." + +"Oh, I know what you mean," said Mr. Shultz negligently. "But I am +very broad-minded just the same. I know you've got your good points +same as we have." + +"I also am broad-minded," said the General. "I also am willing to +admire. For instance, just at present I am suffering from a +toothache, so I admire in you a dazzling monument to the efficacy of +your nation. I refer, Shultz, to your teeth." + +Mr. Shultz smiled, revealed the teeth and said, "Well, have another +whisky soda then. Scotch is the best thing I know for toothache." + +"And you, Miss Davis," said the General. "What do American ladies +drink ordinarily? What would you like? May I offer you some +champagne?" + +"Nothing, thank you. Unless perhaps a glass of cold water." + +"Better not," said Mr. Shultz. "I can have the boy bring some of my +chow water if you like. But you'd better try White Rock or Perrier." + +"Cold water! White Rock!" said the General. "Is that the stuff by +which great civilizations are nourished!" + +But Megan interrupted him. His levity made her uneasy though she +could not quite tell why. Perhaps it was because the presence of Mr. +Shultz, far from simplifying her situation, seemed to have +complicated it. She did not want Mr. Shultz to feel that he had to +protect her from anything, because that would cast a cloud over her +relations with the General. Mr. Shultz's presence made an even more +delicate balance necessary and the General's boisterousness might +inadvertently upset it. + +"Have you lived here long, Mr. Shultz?" she asked coolly. + +"Longer than you've lived anywhere," he replied. Then he gave his +attention to his hand for a moment. As the three cards he called for +were dealt him he held them tightly against his chest, moving them +only enough to see the edge of their marking. "Yes, longer than +you've lived anywhere," he repeated and laying them face down on the +table he pushed a stack of chips forward. "I'll raise that fifty," +he said, and after having called the General's three queens, he +remarked, "Well, sometimes it pays to believe them. Yes, Miss Davis, +I know China well. I guess I know all their bad points and their +good points too." + +"What are some of their good points?" + +"We've always known how to build walls," said the General, raking in +chips with his delicate fingers. + +"Ah, yes, walls. To keep people out, I suppose?" + +"A lot of good that did you," said Mr. Shultz. "You never kept 'em +out. What you ought to have done was to grow a little hair on your +chests." + +"Would that have kept them out!" exclaimed the General. + +Megan felt an even more complete disgust with Mr. Shultz. It wiped +out any repulsion or antagonism she had felt for the General, which +after all had been largely physical and as she believed unimportant. +Now she felt sorry for him in the hands of this terrible Shultz, +convinced that there was nothing in him capable of resistance to such +a brutal vulgarity. She felt she ought to make an attempt to defend +him herself. Mr. Shultz leaned back in his chair and took from his +vest pocket a fat cigar. He held it up to his nose and smelled it +meditatively. + +"The best point the Chinese've got," he said, "is humor. And there +is only one time it fails them. That is on a question of face. They +can't stand their dignity trod on. Never. But they can laugh at +each other like nothing you ever saw. That so, General? Oh, the +General here has got the keenest sense of humor of the lot. By and +by I'll tell you a little incident to illustrate just how far he can +go in laughing at the other fellow." + +"I hope," said the General, "you will confine yourself to anecdotes +about yourself. Another episode like that of your inadvertent +assault on the honor of your fellow countrywoman." + +Megan again interrupted with determination. + +"You are the General's financial adviser, aren't you? Just what does +that mean, Mr. Shultz?" + +"It means I can get more money out of this province than any man +alive. Right now I've got nine hundred thousand taels in a box-car +on a siding ready to ship anywhere. But it doesn't mean that the +General follows my advice on what to do with it. Not so you'd notice +it. He keeps me so he can do what I tell him not to." + +"What do you spend it on, General? I'm interested to know how a +province is run. Nine hundred thousand taels in a box-car seems a +huge sum to me!" + +"Depends on what you're used to," said Mr. Shultz. "The Missions +wouldn't think much of it." + +"One thing I spend it on," said the General, "is my arsenal. I am +proud of that. It is my pet. You know we invented gunpowder long +before it was known in Europe, but only used it for fireworks. I am +forced now by circumstances to turn out arms; we produce a trench +mortar the equal of any made in Europe, but if peace ever comes to my +province long enough I shall spend my time in inventing and producing +the most delicious and the strangest varieties of fireworks." + +"Hm," said Mr. Shultz, "I doubt it." + +"And what else do you do with it?" asked Megan. + +"Oh, I don't think it would interest you, Miss Davis. It is all very +dull. Upkeep of my troops, of roads and government buildings, +propaganda." + +"Propaganda?" + +"Yes, a great amount of my revenue goes into that. Foreign and +local, especially local. I can only govern by force and the good +opinion people have of me. I have to buy both of them, and I find +that good opinion is much the more expensive." + +"I believe in the local propaganda all right," said Mr. Shultz. "A +few pamphlets around to the soldiers. They can't read them and they +respect any one that can shower them with information that's a +mystery to them. But not this foreign propaganda. No one cares in +Europe or the States what a bunch of Chinese are doing. 'Don't get +us in on it,' that is all they say. No, you overdo it. Enough's +enough." + +"No," said the General, "you are wrong; enough is seldom enough. A +small surplus is generally necessary." He turned to Megan. "You'll +admit, Miss Davis, that in a country like yours, where nearly every +man can read, it is of the utmost importance that he read the truth?" + +"Don't make me laugh," said Mr. Shultz. "There isn't such a thing as +truth, the way you mean it." + +"You are clever to see the way I mean it," said the General. + +"Sure I'm clever," admitted Mr. Shultz. "Say, is this poker we're +playing or lotto? How about a few royalties here, ladies and +gentlemen, how about a few royalties?" + +He bit the end off his cigar, spitting it into the corner of the +room. The General offered his briquet. Captain Li, looking politely +aloof, sipped hot tea with a sucking noise. + +"Yes, I guess I'm clever enough," Mr. Shultz said, "but I'm a child +alongside you, General. I'll admit that. I'll tell you that little +incident I spoke of, Miss Davis; it'll illustrate what I mean about +the General's sense of humor." + +He looked around on them with his shining white smile. His teeth, so +regular, so efficient, were made to chew things into small bits. He +looked greedy. The General gave a slight exclamation, probably of +annoyance, and made with his hand holding a cigarette a gesture of +sudden surrender. Megan wondered that he allowed this Mr. Shultz to +go on as he did. Surely there was something he could do about the +insolence of a man who was in his employ. He was himself presumably +a despot, yet that momentary gesture of his hand, a gesture of an +almost touching beauty, revealed the secret weakness of one who was +peculiarly susceptible to disgust and fear. + +"Well, it was like this," said Mr. Shultz. "A while back the General +decided that the Nationalists were pretty sure to win out here in +China and he thought he'd better accept some of their secret offers +of negotiation. But at the same time the feeling here was strong +against them, especially among the men who were backing him. He was +in a delicate situation. Any other man would have sent the best +older politician he could lay hands on to negotiate for him. But not +the General. If the Nationalists met any serious defeat, if anything +went wrong here at home, it was important that he be able to back out +quickly and no older man was going to be his goat for him, see? So +he sends a young man, one of those idealistic scholar chaps, fine +family, father great friend of his and all. This lad goes off +thinking it is all for the good of China. But the trouble with all +this was that the negotiations were premature. The Nationalists +couldn't back up their promises at the time, and it was no go. But +this boy was so full of enthusiasm for the Nationalists' aims that he +couldn't bear to have the turn-over fall through. He began to +reproach the General, to talk right and left. The General was +beginning to be in wrong all around, with his own crowd and with the +Nationalists. Every one knew that the boy had got from the +Nationalists a proposition to sell out for so much, and then that the +General had refused to accept the offer. It wouldn't look to you or +I as though there was much could be done about this, because this +boy's father was a great supporter of the General and an old personal +friend. Captain Li here is a cousin of the boy and they say his +intimate friend. They say Li is a scholar too. Well, this is what +the General did: he went through all the motions of being shocked +beyond words, claimed the boy had been carried away by false +doctrines and tried to sell out on his own. And when he heard this +the boy lost his nerve and ran. He didn't seem to have confidence in +the General like he ought, because the General wasn't intending to +harm him at all. He's got too much humor for that." + +Megan looked at the General but his face showed only a conventional +and rather absent smile of politeness. He was intent on the game +which was progressing during Shultz's recital. Shultz paused in fact +long enough to call a hand of Mah-li's and having, as usual, lost, +remarked: + +"Interesting but expensive." Then, looking at Megan, he went on: +"Well, of course they caught this young man easily enough. It seems +he was passing for a cart coolie and he had got him a brand-new cart. +One day he hid in a farm in a little outshed where they store +vegetables, but he left this cart outside and the soldiers spotted it +right away as being too new-looking. So they went in. He resisted +them, but they got him. And Here's where the General's cleverness +comes in. Did he execute him? Not a bit of it. If he'd done that +every one would have believed he had double-crossed him and was +obliged to get rid of him to keep him from squealing and this boy's +family would have got some revenge on him. No, he pardons him after +allowing himself to be persuaded a bit by all the relatives and all +the prominent men of the province. That way they think he is +straight, and besides, he gets a great reputation for being +magnanimous. Everything O.K. I call that humor." + +Megan looked quickly at the General and at Captain Li. They made no +comment. + +"Li don't speak English," said Mr. Shultz. + +Megan sat in silence. She was not inclined to believe anything Mr. +Shultz, an obvious adventurer, an extremely repulsive personality, +might say. Nevertheless the story struck a memory of what Doctor +Strike had suggested about the General's capacity for treachery. She +looked at the General; she remembered the gesture of helplessness he +had made a moment before, and she decided they must both be wrong, +deceived by what was perhaps an external necessity and had no bearing +on any integral part of the General's character. + +"What became of the young man?" she asked, saying to herself that it +really did not matter what Mr. Shultz told her. + +"Oh, him? Well, he got badly mauled when they were taking him out of +the farm. Some say they hamstrung him but I'm not sure. Anyway, it +don't matter because he shot himself. He had lost face." + +This of course was so obviously an attempt to pile on horror that it +justified her disbelief of the whole story. The General had leaned +back and was looking at the ceiling. + +"What do you say about it?" said Megan. + +"I? Why, I say he is lying grossly of course. He is trying to +entertain you. I thought you would recognize that." + +Megan felt relieved. + +"Then it is not true?" + +"It is not true. It is based on a real incident of course. But +there is no single motive in it that is correctly stated." + +"Oh, it's the truth, all right," said Mr. Shultz easily. "But what's +the use of being upset? I don't want you to think badly of the +General. He is a little hard on his enemies, and even on his +friends, but he believes we are in this life to get what there is out +of it. He knows we've only got one life to live. Everybody is after +the bacon and he might as well be the one to get it. Yes, sir, to +bring home the bacon every time, that's the General's philosophy." + +"See here," said the General, "I don't mind your lying about my +actions, but I will not have you explaining my philosophy." + +And the General smiled, but a bit uneasily. Mr. Shultz also smiled, +his smile of white teeth and clear eyes, all candor and arrogance. + +"Why, don't I know you like I know my own self?" he demanded. "Ain't +you and I thick as thieves?" + +He leaned over and clapped the General on the shoulder. The General +shrank from him and began to deal, but Mr. Shultz held up two fingers +close together and waved them before his face, to show how little +separated his sympathies from those of the General. + +"Don't you tell me everything?" he continued. "And if you don't, +don't I know where to find out anyway?" + +"I don't know. Do you?" + +Mr. Shultz leaned his elbows on the table and, as his cards came, +turned the edges up just enough to peep under. + +"Sure I do. Like to hear, Miss Davis, how I find out what I want to +know about the General, that is, when he hasn't confidence enough to +tell me himself? Well, this is how. I give fifty dollars to his +body-guard." + +Megan looked at the General but he did not seem to be very +disconcerted by this news. Perhaps he felt that his body-guard would +not be in possession of any very valuable information. And he had +also just drawn a pair to three of a kind. + +"You give too much," he said. + +"Oh, sometimes I give more than that," said Mr. Shultz. And when the +hand was finished he repeated, "Yes, it becomes an expensive +business. If fifty isn't enough, why, I give two hundred and fifty +to Captain Li here. Yes, sir! And if it is something I really have +to know, five hundred will do it. Five hundred Mex to Captain Li." + +The captain, recognizing his name, looked inquiringly about the +table. The General's face seemed to have shrunk under his smile. + +"And how does Captain Li know?" + +Megan felt at once by the tone of his voice that he was excited, and +evidently Mr. Shultz recognized it too. He pushed his chair back and +got up. + +"You'd better ask him that," he said. + +But the General did not ask. He sat counting chips from one hand to +the other and back again. He was looking down at them, and over one +eye a small nerve pulsed visibly. Mr. Shultz walked around the table +and as he passed behind the General he looked at Mah-li and his teeth +flashed in a smile. + +In the corner of the room was a phonograph. He went over to that, +and turned on a record. It was _E lucevan le stelle_, sung by +Caruso. The voice poured out so familiar and European that Megan was +startled. Mr. Shultz stood listening a moment, then he came back and +sat down, resting his elbows on the table. The General appeared also +to listen. + +"Is that good music?" he asked. + +"No," said Megan. + +"That's the stuff," said Mr. Shultz, his eyes dreamy with +satisfaction. "That's the greatest voice the world has ever known." + +"Is it a love-song?" Mah-li asked Megan in a low voice, but Mr. +Shultz heard and answered for her. + +"That's what it is, Mah-li. Red-hot too. You ought to know." + +Megan got up and went over to the phonograph, which was near a +window. The window was open and a light rain was falling on the +flags of the court outside. The dwarfed yellow plum, which some one +about the yamen seemed to have placed in every room, bloomed in its +dark glazed bowl, on a table piled high with records. Megan, leaning +over to smell it, saw herself in her yellow robe dimly reflected in +the glaze. The plum had a powdery pollen smell that made her think +of the dust on the wings of moths and butterflies. The perfect voice +continued to flood the room with tones that, despite the banality of +the air, held nobility and glamour. Megan watched the General as he +appeared to listen intently, wondering how it was striking him. +Surely this simple insistence on desire and death must be apparent +even to him, even in its unfamiliar medium. Was he thinking of +Mah-li she wondered? What would a Chinese love-song be like? The +music of the wedding procession she had heard in the afternoon came +suddenly back to her, not as remembered sound, but as a depression of +spirit. + +The General was frowning. "I don't know your good music from your +bad," he said. "A music house in Shanghai sends me catalogues and I +order every seventh name on the list." + +Megan came back slowly and sat down by Mah-li. The game had stopped. +Mah-li sat with her hands clasped on the table and Megan saw the jade +rings she wore. + +"How pretty," she said, touching one lightly with her finger. + +Mah-li spread her hands out fanwise, and the General leaned over and +looked down also at Mah-li's hands. + +"Do you know jade?" he asked, and bent closer to examine the rings. + +"I know no more of it than you do of music. It does interest me +however. I believe it is a very esoteric taste, isn't it?" + +"Do you like it?" He seemed to her unduly persistent. "Look at them +closely," he said. + +Mah-li stripped off the rings and Megan, a little embarrassed, +examined them. The jade was set in diamonds on gold bands. She did +not like the settings. The color of the jade was deep and +translucent but it aroused no special emotion in her; she was not +fond of jewels. + +"Valuable as diamonds, gem jade like that," said Mr. Shultz with +satisfaction, "and these people would rather have it." + +It seemed that he meant even this to be offensive. Megan started to +hand back the rings. + +"Yes, I can see they are lovely," she said politely. + +The General suddenly caught her hand and closed it firmly about the +rings. + +"I want you to keep them," he said, "they are yours." + +Megan shook his hand off and dropped the rings as if they had been +hot coals. + +"They are yours," the General insisted, "put them on and wear them." + +"That is simply preposterous, I wouldn't think of it. I don't want +them." + +Megan was stammering with indignation, but more from his peremptory +touch and command than from what he implied. She had not realized +that yet. She turned to look at Mah-li and saw by the fixity of her +eyes, looking directly ahead of her, that she was deeply troubled. +The young captain took a sip of tea with a sucking sound, set down +his cup and politely hiccoughed. + +"You must take them," the General repeated. "I assure you they are +mine to give. The money which bought them came from me. Or so I am +told," he looked around at all of them and added with finality, "so +now I give them to you." + +"This is too disgusting!" Megan started to get up, but Mah-li +suddenly put out her fragile hand and touched her arm. There was the +urgency of the suppliant in the pressure of her fingers. + +"Please take them," she whispered. + +Megan turned and looked at her. Then she gave a final exclamation. + +"I'll take them," she said, looking at Mah-li and ignoring the +others, "but I'll return them to you in the morning." + +She gathered them loosely in one hand and sat staring angrily ahead +of her. + +Mr. Shultz burst into a roar of melodious laughter, and under cover +of it Mah-li said something in Chinese to the General. He nodded +indifferently and she slipped from her chair and left the room. + +When the door had shut behind her, Megan said: + +"I hate you both for humiliating her like that. It was disgusting." +But she did not look at the General, she looked straight at Mr. +Shultz. She got up. "I'm going now." + +The General pushed his chair back abruptly. He said nothing, but he +looked at her with an expression of such despair that she did not +know whether it was genuine or assumed to play the buffoon and to +disarm her. As she stood surprised, he took her gently by the arm +and pushed her back into her chair. + +"Don't go, please," he said. "Have another cigarette, let me offer +you something to drink." + +She shook her head. But she decided not to leave as long as she was +angry. + +Mr. Shultz poured himself another drink and puffed at his cigar. +Then holding it between his teeth he began to count up the chips. + +"Nice girl, Mah-li," he said, "well-mannered, raised in a Mission +school she tells me." He winked at Megan. + +"She is altogether charming," said Megan icily; "she is pretty and +quiet and modest, and I am quite sure she is good." + +"Well, that's an idea!" laughed Mr. Shultz. + +"Why shouldn't she be quiet and modest?" said the General. "You must +understand that she belongs to a class so accepted that it is not +necessary for her to put forth any lures whatsoever. She does not +have to exert herself. For five thousand years it has all been done +for her. She has only to apply rouge and jewels, to conduct herself +in a certain way, and fifty centuries of seduction act for her. You +must admit, Miss Davis, we make life easy for women in China." + +"Isn't he the ladder?" said Mr. Shultz. "I told you he had humor." + +Megan rested her head on her hands, covering her ears to shut out Mr. +Shultz's words. + +"I really want to go. I can't stand this sort of stuff you both +talk, it is so artificial and confusing and it doesn't mean anything. +I am tired of it." + +"Perhaps I'd better go," said Mr. Shultz, getting slowly to his feet. +He looked Megan over as he ground his cigar into the ash-tray. +Without another word he finished counting the chips, those of Mah-li, +of the Captain and the General, then he took out a paper and pencil, +made a note and handed it to the General. + +"Settle up to-morrow," he said. "Good night, Miss Davis. Now you +and the General can have a little heart-to-heart talk." He strolled +with a curious lightness of step over to the door and once more +turned to look at her, a ponderous man with a heavy turtle-neck, but +his eyes were youthful and insolent. "Don't forget your rings, Miss +Davis," he drawled. + +When he had gone, Megan said to the General, "How did you ever get +hold of him?" + +"Oh," said the General with the air of being suddenly confidential, +"he came to me with a letter from a good friend of mine. He is a +remarkable man. He does everything. He understands thoroughly all +Western business methods because he has been connected at one time or +another with various firms, and while he is not actually a graduate +engineer he has had enough experience (he was with a company making +some sort of quartz light and with one making radios) so that now he +manages my arsenal and does it extremely well. I should say the +prosperity of my province is largely due to his efficiency. I am +very attached to him." + +"He is ill-bred," said Megan, "and he has no ideals; he is a +thoroughly unscrupulous adventurer. If you knew the West better you +would recognize that at once. Don't let his efficiency blind you." + +"He has two virtues besides his efficiency," said the General, "that +are even more indispensable to me. He is courageous and he is loyal." + +"Loyal! And yet he talks about you as you heard him talk to-night!" + +"You don't understand. He was calling my attention to a betrayal. +He was reminding me first how disliked I am in certain quarters, how +great a bribe might be given, and to whom. He wanted to focus my +distrust on a person whom it would not be possible for him to accuse +directly." + +"Maybe so. But I still wish you would get rid of him. That he +should represent all you want to accept from the West is pitiful. I +can't imagine a man like you rejecting Doctor Strike and accepting +Mr. Shultz. Doctor Strike also has courage, and he also is loyal----" + +"But not to me," the General interrupted. "Doctor Strike's first +loyalty would always be elsewhere. He would probably say to his God. +And a man who has dedicated himself to the service of any god is +unreliable as a friend." + +"Mr. Shultz seems to me to be dedicated to himself, first, last and +always." + +"That is just it. That is why he is loyal to me. He is a thoroughly +reasonable man. I am his best chance. My interests are his +interests. As long as that remains so I can count on him absolutely." + +"But you yourself told me it did not occur to Doctor Strike to betray +you to the authorities to get his safe-conduct pass." + +"The motive was not strong enough. He would betray me to please his +God any time. The difference is I can control the loyalty of Shultz. +I can make it always to his advantage to serve me. When I cannot do +that any longer I can expect to lose him. But how can I possibly +foresee what Doctor Strike will do! On one occasion he actually +tried to persuade me to save a young man's life, at the expense of my +own. When I would not do so he turned against me. No, no, Shultz +has all I want of the West. Doctor Strike has nothing." + +The finality of these words silenced Megan. The General sat looking +at her, and Megan, who was never self-conscious, looked back at him, +thinking not of him but of the Jesuit church in the Chinese city, of +the first attempt, simple, gracious and even courtly, to bring the +word of God. Yet after several hundred years during which the +attempt had increased in volume and complicated itself immeasurably, +China, which had accepted so many other things, still felt no need of +the Word. It accepted Mr. Shultz. It rejected Doctor Strike. + +Megan sighed as if she herself had partaken in the long struggle. +She looked at her watch. It was eleven-thirty. + +"I must be going. I want to say just one more thing. You won't be +hard on little Mah-li, will you? Whatever Captain Li has done I am +sure she is quite innocent. I am going to return these rings to her +to-morrow. Unless you would return them yourself?" She held them +out tentatively but the General did not answer. "Well, then I will. +Good night, General Yen." + +The General stood up and bowed as she passed him. + +"Good night, Miss Davis." + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XVII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XVII + +Megan slept heavily and as she came slowly out of unconsciousness she +checked off one by one the familiar sounds of the yamen, the farmyard +crow of the roosters, the soft thud of barefooted soldiers drilling +in the outer court, the ringing of the telephone and the voice of the +young orderly. Already these sounds meant a routine of life. She +lay in bed all morning and toward noon asked her amah for a hot bath. +Presently she heard the coolie carrying pails of water and emptying +them in a robin's-egg blue Soochow tub that stood in a little bath +closet off her room. She listened, thinking how much labor each +intervaled splash had cost and wondering at the simplicity of Eastern +life. + +In this yamen of the General she had seen no sign of luxury or +magnificence. It was a house obviously made for a life which began +and ended with the rising and the setting of the sun. Early in the +evening she had heard a click of tiles from the kitchen court in the +rear, where some of the servants played mah jong, but that had soon +stopped and by ten o'clock the yamen became a collection of dimly +lighted rooms where people slept. Even the group at the poker game +had an air of enforced wakefulness, like children kept up at a +railroad station. + +After her bath Megan sat down before Mah-li's little dressing-case +and brushed her hair into lacquered smoothness. Then she examined +the case and the lipsticks and eye-pencils it contained. She gave a +slow experimental stroke to her lips and, daring further, touched her +face with some of the pallid almond powder, put a faint touch of blue +on her lids. Her eyes stood out startlingly in a face of luminous +skin, of subtle transparent shadow; she saw that whatever the cause +she was changed, something had heightened, intensified, she was once +more beautiful. + +Her eyes caught Mah-li's rings lying where she had left them. She +picked them up to examine the jade more closely. For all their high +polish they gave back very little light, rather light sank in them +and was lost; they retained obstinately their perfection of green. +Megan put them on her thin fingers so that when she saw Mah-li she +would have them ready to slip into her hand. While she waited for +more food, for something, it did not matter much what, to happen, she +stroked her lips fastidiously with the lipstick, looking at herself, +gratified by her appearance and by her gesture, which was like a +movement in a steady pantomime. + +A tiffin came and was eaten, cleared away. She smoked five +cigarettes, watching the jade on her fingers as she smoked. Then +there was nothing to do. She lay down again, her hands behind her +head. How bewilderingly full a Western day is, how many things to do +and what little time to do them in! What does a Chinese lady's day +consist of? Small duties no doubt, little rituals, talk about +sewing, gardens, children, the everlasting preoccupations of women. +Mah-li's day,--what did she do, what did she think about? How could +she ever understand what Mah-li would think about! Yet it must be +simple too, if one only had the key. If there were only some way to +grasp what it meant, this life murmuring around her, a monotonous +melody, so widely spaced that years grew between the notes. + +And there seemed to be three notes dominating: simplicity, sameness, +security. How long ago did they irrevocably decide, these people, +just what and how much to extract from the world about them, from the +jewels of the earth and growing things, from rivers, the seasons, men +and women? How long ago did they gather together ceremonials and +establish the relations of a man among men into a stylized routine, +in which the dignity of each is preserved intact like a fly in amber? +How did they unerringly know what fragile crystallizations of verse, +what massive undulations of form and color, would satisfy their +palates? How did they render their palates once and for all +incapable of satiety? Perhaps by turning every effort toward the +establishment of peace, peace in the land and in the heart, by +refusing action for the sake of decorum, by placing propriety above +love, by ignoring equality and freedom that the best may be +cultivated, and by refusing to be lured from their submissive +contemplation of life to the perils of ecstasy and aspiration. + +"I wonder if I am right about them," thought Megan, "and should one +consider any group so enormous as a homogeneous unit. There is +surely room among them for greater variety than this. And so many of +them have already been assailed by contacts from another world, the +circle has already been broken in places. The General has spent +years in Europe. He speaks English perfectly, and it should be +impossible for him to speak a language so different in all its forms +from his own without experiencing certain modifications of thought. +One would imagine the language, even taken by itself, to be as active +as a cake of yeast. And he is troubled. That is just what is the +matter with him, he is disturbed as I could never even conceive of +being disturbed. No wonder he instinctively resists as best he can, +striking blindly, making foolish gestures, taking refuge in any +formula that presents itself. Poor General! + +"And how very charming he is!" + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XVIII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A sharp whistle sounded outside her window, a sound as unmistakably +European as Caruso's voice. Megan knew it must be Mr. Shultz. She +waited until it came again, with greater urgency, then got up +reluctantly. She looked down on Mr. Shultz from the window and saw +him standing below in plus fours with pale checked golf hose and +elaborate brogues. As he looked up at her the expression of his eyes +softened perceptibly, and she realized that she was still decorated +with Mah-li's make-up and that Mr. Shultz, unconscious of the cause, +found her more attractive than he had the night before, that he was +impressed by the change. Although she believed his admiration to be +a matter of complete indifference to her, she felt a certain +amiability toward him, a tolerance that she could not account for. + +"Good morning, Miss Davis." + +"Good morning, Mr. Shultz. Where are you off to?" + +"I'm going away to attend to some urgent business of the General's, +and I don't like to leave you here alone all day. Not that you can't +take care of yourself in most circumstances, but things aren't going +so well over in town. If Mah-li, for instance, should want to take +you on any more shopping tours, like she did yesterday, you'd better +not go." + +"They aren't fighting in the town, are they?" + +"No, not fighting, but maybe getting ready to. It is a funny thing, +Miss Davis, but I seem to have a kind of sixth sense where money is +concerned. And I can just tell by hundreds of small indications, +that no one else might hardly notice, that there has been an awful +lot of money let loose in the last day or so in that town. It didn't +come from the General, so that means the Communists have got it and +if they've got it the probabilities are it is Russian money. No one +hands out money just for the improvement of the race, Miss Davis. It +is for value received, and that looks bad." + +"I suppose you mean the Communists are being paid to throw the +General out." + +"It looks as if they were going to try." + +"Can't you pay them more not to?" + +"Good Lord, Miss Davis, you sound Chinese!" Mr. Shultz laughed. + +"Oh, I didn't mean it seriously," said Megan, smiling. "It just +slipped out. Still it does seem reasonable, doesn't it?" + +"Reasonable, except that there is no end to it. No, that is what our +army and our arsenal are supposed to be for, so we don't have to +spend so much on bribes. We find the army is cheaper in the end. +The only trouble is they can bribe the army too, if they want to blow +that much." + +"But haven't the army any loyalty?" + +"Oh, you mustn't think of them like our army, Miss Davis. They +haven't any convictions, they are mercenaries. They don't care who +has them, so long as they get their rice and a little loot." + +"The thing to do then would be to give them the convictions, wouldn't +it? Make them feel the General is the man to bring them prosperity +and order and justice, and that he can only do that through their +loyalty." + +"Propaganda? Yes, we do that too. But it is terribly hard, Miss +Davis, to fix anything new in the minds of people who haven't had a +new idea for five thousand years." + +"I suppose it is." + +The spring air had an enervating softness. Megan leaned her head +against a side of the window and looked up at rifts of blue that +opened occasionally in the misty sky. Mr. Shultz leaned against the +wall looking up at Megan. + +"Isn't Captain Li one of the Communist party?" she asked. + +"We think he is. We think he has been betraying the General all +along." + +"Then why keep him?" + +"Sort of hostage, I guess. His family are very powerful, they are +supposed to be friends of the General, but you never can tell. And +then he can't do much harm here." + +Megan was about to say, "And Mah-li?" but she did not. Though she +found Mr. Shultz quite bearable when he was not being an obvious and +direct influence on the General, she did not wish to discuss Mah-li +with him. She felt bound by a mysterious loyalty to Mah-li and the +General. Mr. Shultz, the General had said, was bound by reason and +interest. It did not seem fitting that she should discuss either of +them with him. + +"Well, don't worry about me," she said. "I'll take good care to keep +out of harm all day!" + +"Right-o," said Mr. Shultz, "and don't you worry any. I've got it +all fixed to get you back to Shanghai if anything happens suddenly. +And if it don't, I've still got it fixed to get you back in a few +days. I don't like your being here with these people. The General +is a good scout, but after all, he is Chinese, and his reputation +with women is none too good. As for Mah-li, she isn't the sort a +lady like you should associate with." + +Megan laughed. "So you have ideas of decorum too!" + +"Sure I have," said Mr. Shultz rather indignantly. He straightened +up and put on his cap. "Well, I have to hustle on now," he said, +"but I'll be back by dark. So long, Miss Davis." + +"So long, Mr. Shultz." + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XIX headpiece] + +CHAPTER XIX + +He had scarcely gone when Megan heard a timid knock on her door. She +called but as no one came in she went to open it herself. Mah-li +stood outside wearing her little fur-collared coat and carrying a +blue embroidered bag in her hands. She stood quite stiffly, holding +her bag and looking at Megan with such a strained, empty smile of +politeness that Megan put her arm comfortingly about her shoulders +and drew her into the room. Mah-li shrank from her a little, and +when Megan closed the door behind her and turned to her again she did +not renew her gesture but invited Mah-li by a wave of the hand to sit +down by the table. + +"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have been hoping all morning +you would, but I did not know how to get any word to you." + +Mah-li sat on the edge of her chair and her eyes fixed themselves on +a corner of the room. + +"Yes," she said, "I came to say good-by to you. I am leaving in a +few moments." + +"Leaving! My dear child, it isn't possible, is it?" She did not +like to ask if the General was sending her away. + +Mah-li nodded. + +Megan sat considering her. She felt only indulgence for Mah-li, and +her imagination returned to the glimpse of two delicate painted faces +seen for a moment in one shaft of sunlight. She could not blame her +for a lapse from so problematic a duty. A feeling that this kind of +love, anti-social as it is, has in it something too sacred to be +bound by law is strong in the West, where the rights of the +individual are of such transcendent importance and where society +seems to be created for the good of man, rather than man for the good +of society. There was nothing in Megan's tradition nor in her +experience to make her capable of censoring Mah-li, the rebel, too +severely. + +"Well," she said, "it may be the best thing in the end. You could +not have been happy here. I have wanted to tell you from the first +that if I could help you in any way I would. And now I am sure I +can. You must come to me when I get back to Shanghai. We can plan +then what is best for you and what will make you happy." + +Mah-li looked up and a little puzzled frown gathered between her +perfect eyebrows. + +"Yes, I told you I would be married in Shanghai and perhaps now I +shall have a home there. But wherever I am, it will be the same. I +will look out for you. You mustn't worry about that at all. You can +stay with me until you choose the sort of life you want to lead. +There are so many occupations for women these days, even in China. +They don't have to be the slaves of fantastic customs any longer, and +you mustn't feel that this one experience has ended things for you. +Not at all. You will start out all fresh in a new world and with a +real friend to help you. For I want you to consider me your friend, +Mah-li. Will you?" + +The inadequacy of words became almost terrifying to Megan. With all +the affection and help she wished to pour out on Mah-li she could +only flounder about in phrases that seemed to bend under her. But +she felt Mah-li must be aware of the warmth of her intention. + +"You are very kind," said Mah-li. + +"I suppose," said Megan, "that you are an expert with your needle and +can make all those fascinating embroideries such as I saw in +Shanghai. And then you type, you tell me. That might be something +you would like to follow up. And speaking English so well, I have an +idea we could find you some very interesting secretarial work." + +Mah-li looked into the corner again and a smile curled her lips, a +timid smile, but one holding the ghost of mockery. Megan stopped, +for she could not continue to ignore the fact that Mah-li, as she +stood, was a piece of pure decoration, made only to give pleasure. +It was with relief that she thought again of Captain Li. + +"Is Captain Li a Christian?" she asked, not that it seemed likely but +as a means of introducing him into the field. + +"Oh, no," said Mah-li, and she added, "He is a scholar." + +Megan ignored this jibe, if it really was meant as such, and thought +for a moment of just how she had better present Captain Li as a +solution of Mah-li's future. She found, as she considered him, that +he was a more delicate problem than she had first believed. + +"I suppose you will expect to see Captain Li again," she said +hesitatingly. "You will expect to--that is, you will--well, will you +see him again?" + +Having on Mah-li's behalf abolished the fantastic custom of +concubinage with one wave of the hand, she now was not sure where to +place her. Marriage with the young captain did not seem to offer the +inevitable solution. She found him increasingly difficult to talk +about. + +"I don't know," said Mah-li. + +"But he knows you are being sent away, does he not?" + +"He will see that I am not here," said Mah-li sensibly. + +"Then surely he will realize that you are in trouble and that his +actions have put you in the way of being misunderstood by the +General. I believe the General even thinks that you gave information +about him to Captain Li. I am sure he believes it. Mr. Shultz +practically told him so before us all." + +Mah-li's eyebrows contracted sharply. + +"But as I said before, don't let that upset you too much," said Megan +hastily. "It will all come out all right when we can only think of +what is best to do for you. We don't want to act hastily. Captain +Li, you say, is a scholar. He comes of a powerful family, and I hope +he is a young man of principle and good character. Is he?" + +Mah-li did not answer, and Megan realized that in her desire to help +and in her confusion she had stepped far over the line that Mah-li +appeared to believe should exist between them. She stopped, looking +anxiously at Mah-li's face. It was quite blank. She sat with her +hands clasped on the little blue embroidered bag which she pressed +against her stomach. She leaned against it as if for support. Megan +saw that the bag contained a hot-water bottle, the little red rubber +collar and nickel stopper of which protruded over the top. She +smiled suddenly at the combination. What a child Mah-li was! It +seemed once more clear to her that while she must treat her as a +child, with patience, with indulgence even, she must also handle her +with firmness. + +"Mah-li," she said directly, "why is the General sending you away?" + +Mah-li looked suddenly sick. She drew her shoulders together, +huddling forward over her hot-water bottle. She looked like a small +costly bird transported to an unfavorable climate. + +"The General is sending me away," she said, "because Mr. Shultz told +him I got money from Captain Li for giving him information about the +General." + +And looking up at Megan she smiled again her constrained formal smile +which Megan knew was meant to recall her to reticence. But she +disregarded it. + +"Why does the General believe Mr. Shultz?" + +Mah-li answered in a barely audible voice. + +"The General believes him because he himself has not been generous to +me. He supposes I want the money. My mother and my grandparents +live in Soochow." She added, and Megan could scarcely catch the +words, "They are very poor." + +For a moment Megan was tempted to transfer some of the responsibility +for Mah-li's conduct to filial devotion. It would be more Chinese. +But Mah-li's motives were not really important to her now; they +seemed only an indistinguishable part of the general romantic error +of her life. What was important now was that Mah-li should put +herself in her hands, confide herself and all her little complexities +to her, so that she might save her. + +"Is it true, Mah-li," she demanded, "that you did sell information +about the General?" + +Mah-li's eyes had such a look of withdrawal that it was as though her +face sank down through water, then she bent her head, looking into +her lap, but Megan pressed forward relentlessly. + +"Tell me. It makes no difference to me what you did. It won't +change my feelings toward you if you sold him ten times over. I can +understand that you may have been driven to it. I only want to help +you. I want to do everything I can for you. I must make the General +see as I do, that you have never had a fair chance, and that you are +a child and haven't understood right and wrong any more than a child, +that he must forgive you and do what he can to help you. He also has +been to blame in his relations to you, so he ought to be all the more +willing to forgive. But you see, I can't talk to him, Mah-li, until +you tell me the truth. Try to tell me. I've told you it doesn't +matter, but just tell me. Why, Mah-li, you don't realize to what +extent I want to be your friend." + +Mah-li did not raise her head. Megan saw her face foreshortened, and +her forehead was a dome of obstinacy. Her eyebrows raised slightly +but she made no answer, and Megan was unable to continue with any +assurance of being understood. She had no idea what to say now and a +definite irritation with Mah-li for not accepting her generosity +stole over her. Mah-li's every effort was to maintain, even with +desperation, the obscure balance necessary to her self-respect, or +perhaps only her vanity. + +They sat in silence; Mah-li, reassured, raised her head and looked +now with polite inquiry toward Megan, waiting for her to continue. +Megan wished that she were actually a child and could be given one +efficacious slap. She thought of the rings. + +"I have your jade," she said. "I would have sent them to you but I +thought it safer to wait until I saw you myself. I put them on so I +would be sure to have them ready." + +She slipped off the rings and handed them to Mah-li. Mah-li took +them without hesitation but she did not put them on. She looked at +them lying on her palm and Megan felt she was trying to make up her +mind to say something about them. + +"You have told me," she said finally, "that you would be glad to do +me a favor. Did you really mean that?" + +"Why, of course I did. I have just told you I would do anything for +you." + +"Then I want you please to send these rings to my father and mother +for me. They are old people and poor. They live in Soochow. I have +written it down for you." She reached inside her coat and drew out a +slip of paper with a few Chinese characters on it. "Your friends in +Shanghai, who have lived in China for so long, will know how to send +a package there. Or that Doctor Strike who came that night to the +General. He is a very superior man," she added, obviously anxious to +please Megan by praising him. "I knew him when I was a little girl +in Soochow. He would tell you just what to do with them." She +handed the rings back and for a moment her fingers rested on Megan's +warm palm like cold little shells. + +"You have a chill," Megan exclaimed, "you mustn't go out like that. +Let me order some hot tea for you." + +"No, no, don't order anything. I ought to have gone earlier, and I +really am not cold. These spring days are sometimes a little chilly. +You see, I brought my hot-water bottle." + +She touched the embroidered blue bag, and Megan once more smiled at +the combination of ornament and utility. But as she looked up she +surprised in Mah-li's eyes a wild uncovered gleam of fright. For a +whole moment it fluttered before her uncontrolled and Megan stared +back in dismay. + +"My dear child," she cried, "you are ill, you mustn't go away at all. +Stay here with me. I'll arrange it somehow." + +"No, no," said Mah-li, "that is impossible." + +She ran one finger across her eyebrows to restore serenity to her +face. Megan could scarcely believe she had seen that look. + +"I am not ill. I am tired; that is all." + +She got up and drew her coat together. Megan got up too and +impulsively taking her hands drew her slightly resisting figure to +the window. + +"Don't forget that I meant what I told you. I am your friend and am +here to help you." + +Mah-li let her hands lie irresponsively in Megan's, but she turned +her face toward her with what seemed for the time a vague expectancy. + +"And don't forget either," said Megan, emotion making her voice a +little husky, "that you have another Friend who is always with you. +Didn't they ever tell you these words of His at the Mission +schools?--'Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I +will give you rest.'" + +"Yes, I remember that," said Mah-li. "I embroidered it on a scroll +once and they framed it and hung it on the wall. But it never seemed +to me to be true. It was two thousand years ago He promised that and +the happiness and unhappiness of the world have not changed since. +No, the unhappiness is still poverty, sickness, dying and separation, +the happiness is still the friends around the rice bowl, the +acquiring of riches and honor, the son that is born. These things +are the same. He has not really changed the world. I think He only +used words of courtesy like any other man." + +"But He was not man, Mah-li, He was God. And you are wrong; millions +have listened to Him and His love has transfigured the lives of half +the human race." + +"Has it?" Mah-li turned away. A shadow of disappointment crossed +her face. Whatever she expected she had evidently not received. She +walked slowly to the door and when she reached it, Megan took her by +the shoulders and suddenly kissed her in an awkward school-girl +fashion on both cheeks. She felt the blunt little cheek-bones and +sniffed the perfume of Mah-li's young skin, that was strangely like +the aroma of fine old parchment, but when she looked at her she saw +that this intimacy brought them no closer together. + +After Mah-li had left she stood wondering what she could have said or +done that would have proved more effective. The remembrance of +Mah-li's fingers clutched about the neck of the hot-water bottle +struck her to the heart. She could not rid herself of the idea that +Mah-li had come to her in the hope of something quite definite that +she had not received. But what more did Mah-li want? Had she looked +for a confirmation, or for a new formula, or only for some comforting +observance? Or had she too hoped for the miracle, and this time the +miracle had not been forthcoming? + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XX headpiece] + +CHAPTER XX + +She was still standing in a rather cold and discouraged preoccupation +when the orderly came with a note from the General asking her to +drive with him. She decided at once that she would go, seize a +favorable opening in their conversation and speak to him about +Mah-li. That would obviate at least any imminent physical danger. +She did not know just how far a Chinese general might be expected to +go in punishing an unfaithful concubine but it did not seem unlikely +to anticipate even sudden death. However, death for Mah-li did not +greatly worry her. Her coldness and her discouragement had vanished +at the prospect of an encounter with the General. + +She was elated to discover that she had now a definite issue on which +to base an attack on him, an issue entirely satisfying in its human +implications, the very ache and anguish of mind he would feel over +Mah-li's defection making more valuable his forgiveness of her. An +issue also on the grand scale, since it demanded of him an +unqualified renunciation of his sterile ethic. In a word, if she +could force him to accept it she would at the same time force him to +accept irrevocably the very essence of the Word of God. + +She joined him before the yamen and once more got into the car of +which she had a faint remembrance of having driven in from the +station. It was very elaborately fitted with green enamel vanity +case and smoking set, the windows garlanded with chenille fringes. +Two gray-clad soldiers armed with Mausers rode standing on the +running-board. They drove in silence and Megan watched the lake with +its fleets of islands strung together darkly. There was a light +mist, the young leaves of some of the trees had a reddish flush, +almost like the first bronzing of autumn, and the low key of all the +colors, the milky air, would have given a late autumnal melancholy to +the landscape if it had not been for a few fruit trees that bloomed +with poignant freshness. They turned into the hills and stopped +before a great gate. + +"Would you like to get out?" asked the General. "This temple is very +interesting. I want to show it to you." + +They walked up an avenue of huge camphor trees and turned off at the +left before a curious mound of rock, fretted and hollowed out by +water. In the depressions were carved half-relief figures of Buddhas +and Bodhisattvas. The General led her into narrow caves and passages +in the rock, where water dripped and dim Indian faces sculptured in +low relief looked down from the walls. + +"But this can't be Chinese!" she exclaimed. + +There was a closeness, a secrecy about the place and the faces had a +quality of emotional life that did not seem to her Chinese. + +"The monk who founded this temple came from India. This hill +reminded him of India, so he called it 'the hill that flew over.'" + +They walked farther into the grove across little streams of clear +water, paved with polished pebbles, over which hung an occasional +graceful pavilion. Among the rocks were more sculptured figures. On +a ledge across the stream, behind a pattern of branches, was a figure +that particularly attracted her. Megan stopped to look at it, and +the General suggested they rest for a moment. To have an +uninterrupted view of the Buddha Megan sat down on a smooth low +boulder and the General sat beside her. He offered her a cigarette +and Megan took one, sitting with her elbows on her knees, her chin on +her knuckles, entirely at ease now. The General watched her between +soft puffs at his cigarette. Megan, smoking, was absorbed in the +figure carved in the rock. The sun came out and a few leaf shadows +wavered over it, breaking up the lines and surfaces. What was there +about it, as in the faces carved in the caves, that had seemed not +quite Chinese? It was a face serene and with the lowered eyelids of +a man asleep, but one felt that this man dreamed and that in his +dream he knew all the lost paradises, where love is the law, the +beginning and the end. The Chinese do not dream such dreams. Even +during the brief Buddhist domination they remained secretly and +profoundly indifferent, insensible, to these intoxications of the +spirit, and Buddhism passed, leaving them untroubled as though its +shadow only had passed over them. + +Megan, raised to a higher point of sensitivity, felt that the +General, looking at her, was aware to some extent of what she was +thinking and that he was smiling a little ironically, saying to her +in his mind, "See what we are capable of living through untouched. +And how can you ever hope to change us?" She heard his inner +laughter and with it the laughter of hundreds of small voices, +shrill, thin, as notes of cicadas, rising all about her from tree, +water, earth, hearth flame, the voices of the small gods, the ancient +gods of China never abandoned, forever satisfying a people whose +contemplations are all bounded by the earth and the sky, whose +kitchens, markets, fields, temples and gardens, they fill with their +aroma of homely poetry, their ceremony, their magic. The General +laughed with them, and they, a little senile in triumph, laughed with +the General. + +"You make me think such strange things," said Megan aloud. + +"I know," he replied. "You were thinking that you do not represent +the first religious invasion we have lived through. And perhaps you +are even wondering if you will be able to do more for us than the +others did, yes, even with all that you are willing to give away with +it in the way of kerosene and munitions and a thousand like +commodities, tucked in like a coupon in a package of cigarettes, +entitling one after so many to six plated silver spoons." + +But Megan did not feel that he spoke bitterly. He looked at her with +a smile of pure banter. + +"You do like to make fun of us, don't you?" she said. "But after you +have made fun of us, admit that what we strive for is worth more than +a life of agreeable social relations. For that is your ideal, isn't +it?" + +"But, Miss Davis, the most important thing in a man's life is his +social relations! It is true that in China everything is built on +that. We have a sense of harmony and just proportion that you can +never understand. In a man's duty to his gods we leave him +considerable choice. It concerns him alone. In letters and the arts +he is allowed less choice: an error of taste or judgment would have +more effect on others. But in his duties to those dependent on him +and on whom he is dependent, it was long ago decided what they were +to be and since then no choice has ever been allowed. Our fault is +that we are what one might call myopic. We cannot see clearly beyond +a certain radius. Few of our works of art, for instance, are meant +to be seen from a distance. And so the immediate relations are apt +to seem more important to us, the more distant ones less so. It +seems to work out with us that a man's relations to his father are +very nearly perfect, to his state as good as he can conveniently make +them." + +The General picked up a few pebbles and threw them one by one into +the stream, then he threw them a little farther, until one struck the +knee of a seated figure. It was the first gesture Megan had seen him +make that did not seem the expression of some secret strain, in spite +of the fact that all his gestures were gracious. + +"Now I've told you what our goal is, tell me what you understand to +be yours. I'll see if I think it is so much finer than a life of +agreeable social relations." + +"You explain things so much better than I do, I don't know whether I +can tell you." + +She thought a moment. + +"I suppose," she said, "our ideal is all contained in the words of +Christ. 'Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole mind, thy +whole soul, and thy whole strength.' And following that, 'Thou shalt +love thy neighbor as thyself.' He himself says that is all the law." + +"To love my neighbor as myself has always seemed to me a very +disgusting injunction. I can only say that you don't usually carry +it out. You personally perhaps, but then you are strangely sincere. +To you the important thing seems to be a certain generosity. You are +willing (you must forgive me this, Miss Davis) to be generous at +nearly any one's expense. Most people are not. Your tenet, if +carried out, would lead to an inconceivable state of disorder. It is +possibly the theory most dangerous to humanity at large that has ever +come into the world. It is fortunate, perhaps it was inevitable, +that it should have been accepted by races gifted with an ability to +think one way and live another. The Ideal. Yes. To them that +remains sufficient in itself. They hold it up in one hand, as if it +were a great crystal ball, and they say to others, 'See, this is what +I aspire to. Isn't it beautiful of me!' And with the other hand +they quietly pick the purse of an admiring listener." + +Megan burst out laughing, partly at the droll twist of his eyebrows +as he said this, and the sly gesture of the hand delicately picking +an invisible pocket. + +"It isn't fair to judge a man by what he succeeds in accomplishing," +she said. "Your theory of social relations, you admit, doesn't work +out perfectly." + +"No, it does not. But taken purely as an ideal of conduct, tell me +why I should be expected to love an aged beggar, who sits outside my +gate, who is a congenital scoundrel, and who is loathsomely afflicted +with elephantiasis?" + +Megan, at the risk of being inept, decided to answer him seriously. +But it was something of a strain to do so and she spoke with none of +the heat that had formed her words to Mah-li. + +"Why, to help him, of course. I believe that only through love can +people be saved. And your beggar must be saved, must become +conscious that he too is a creature of God." + +"But he knows already that he is a creature of God. And I cannot +save him. Elephantiasis is incurable, so is old age, so, I believe, +is even rascality." + +"Really!" Megan laughed, abandoning seriousness, "you almost make me +despair of you. Do you consider then that between you and that +beggar there exists no relationship whatsoever?" + +"Certainly. But it is a very simple one. Mine to him is to toss him +the coins on which he sustains his life. His to me is a lively +gratitude for my bounty. In this way each of us is satisfied. But +it would be as horrible for him as for me should I undertake to love +him. Indeed, when you insist on that you can really put no limit to +what I must love. You will end up by insisting I love things of +which I can't even speak." + +"You are reducing it to the absurd and that isn't fair. Just tell me +one thing. You call yourself a Communist, don't you?" + +"No, no," protested the General. + +"Well, a Republican then. Does a beggar at your gate fit into that +picture?" + +"Oh, politics!" The General shrugged and made a little half-turn +with his fingers, dismissing politics like so much dust. "Every one +must have a label. Almost any label will do." + +Megan felt too languid to continue. Beauty rising from the grove and +from the figures carved in the rock seemed to coil like delicate +smoke through her brain. They sat without speaking for several +moments and then by unspoken agreement got up and walked farther +along till they came to the temple, containing a vast wooden Buddha +whose head touched the ceiling. Priests were chanting in voices +pitched on a low note which mounted and descended as in a Catholic +vespers. One sounded, at intervals, a little muffled drum. A young +acolyte brought them tea, which they drank on a wooden bench against +the temple wall. They wandered afterward into a dusty hall full of +gilded lohan standing in rows in the gloom. But there was little +beauty in the temple, the great Buddha or the lohan, and Megan's eyes +returned to the hill outside, feathery with bamboos and mounded with +graves. Soft white clouds rested on it. The temple lacked utterly +what she had already found in the grove, a sense of mystery. + +They walked slowly back to their waiting car, and as they drove along +the General pointed to an island in the lake. + +"To-morrow if I am free we must visit that island. There are pools +and pools of lotus there, crossed by red causeways. I will have them +forbid the landing of any visitors for the whole day and we will take +tea undisturbed in one of the pavilions. You will imagine that you +are in old China, not the China of temples but the China of gardens." + +"What a delicious phrase!" and she repeated it in a whisper. "'The +China of gardens!' You must not think," she said dreamily, "that I +don't realize what charm your life had at its best. The truth is I +scarcely dare to think of it. The faintest fragrance of it would +seduce any imagination." + +Megan looked toward the island the General had indicated and thought +of a red pavilion over pools of still lotus, and she suddenly thought +of the tea the General would pour for her as having the power to +steal away the soul. A slight shock as if something had fallen +seemed to vibrate warningly through her nerves. She turned to look +curiously at the General. He returned her look blandly, a little +absently. Perhaps he also was thinking of the pavilion. Megan's +eyebrows gathered in a frown. + +"But the trouble with that life was," she said severely, "it was +enjoyed by far too few. Such a tiny per cent of your countless +millions ever knew it." + +"And what difference does that make? Undoubtedly the quality of it +was such that only a rare few could appreciate it. Who wants a +civilization that would seem satisfying to your beggar with +elephantiasis? But how you struggle, Miss Davis, against the idea of +your own pleasure! Your plan is to diffuse it over the whole world, +share it with the whole race. I am surprised at this in one of your +incomparable distinction. Don't you know that the more concentrated +pleasure becomes the keener it is? I sometimes feel it is at its +best when tasted by oneself alone." + +"You are a poor Republican. You don't dare admit your ideas to many +people, do you?" + +"To practically no one. I know I am a poor Republican. Whenever a +good Republican becomes really necessary in China, I will go under." + +"You hate all this change then?" + +"Not entirely." He smiled at her. "Certain new combinations seem to +rise out of it occasionally that make it worth what is lost." + +Megan exclaimed, "It is not possible that you are being gallant, is +it?" + +"Why not? How very unflattering you are! Do you think we have never +been gallant to women?" + +"Well," Megan laughed with a touch of constraint, "I somehow never +pictured a Chinese gentleman as being anything but subdued by his +mother and tyrannical to his wife. But I suppose that is an absurd +injustice. You must have had generations of women with beauty and +wit and of course goodness. And then in modern China,--I should +think you would enjoy these astonishing changes that must have come +about in educated women." + +Megan realized that the comradeship they had managed to arrive at so +suddenly and without effort had vanished at the first mention of +women. They were once more on their first uneasy footing. Why? +Because such a comradeship was fundamentally unnatural to him, or +because she was thinking again of Mah-li? With a sudden compunction +she forced Mah-li to the foremost position in her mind. Until his +responsibility to Mah-li was settled, she told herself, there could +never be real friendliness between them. She said decidedly: + +"And even among those not educated in the modern way, one has only to +look at their faces to see how many of them have good temper and a +keen sense of humor." + +He bowed his head toward her. + +"I thank you on their behalf." + +"For instance, Mah-li," she insisted, "I find her full of all sorts +of possibilities." + +The General did not answer. He turned halfway toward the window. + +"I have grown very fond of her. She struck me as a child who has for +the time more or less lost her way. She is only a child, you know." + +But the General evidently meant to discourage her. He did not +answer, and Megan felt alternately hot and cold with the desire to +urge him to some declaration of his intentions and the fear that he +would only continue to be baffling. She turned from him and saw on +the hill, outlined against a white cloud, the pagoda with tufts of +foliage sprouting from its top. It recalled the General's phrase +about the China of gardens and she regretted that the illusion of +their sympathy had to be lost so soon. In helping people, she +thought, one foregoes such a great deal of their charm, one even at +times voluntarily destroys it. She permitted herself one final pang +that this must be so, and because of this weakness returned with even +greater insistance and fervor to her determination that the General +should face the issue on Mah-li. But before she could speak again +the General said to her: + +"Please let us never talk any more of Mah-li. I respect your feeling +toward her, but she is worthy of none of it. You do not understand." + +He spoke in his rather curious high voice, what she thought of as his +official voice, and his rebuke gave the final spur to her ardor. She +saw that the car had reached the gate of the yamen and it was slowing +down to stop. + +"But I do understand," she cried, "I do. Don't stop here, please, +drive on a little. I have to talk to you." + +The General looked at her blankly; astonishment seemed always +momentarily to paralyze his initiative. Then he leaned forward and +spoke to the driver. The car moved slowly along the road. For a +moment Megan tried to think clearly what to say to him, but could not +and decided to trust to an onrush of emotion. + +"You and I will never be friends," she said, "till we settle this +about Mah-li. It is just like a wall between us. I must make you +see it as I do. I must make you feel your responsibility to Mah-li. +She is a creature dependent on you, so much less intelligent than +you, so simple, so uncomplicated, that she is like a child beside +you. You can do anything you want to her, make nearly anything you +want of her. Your responsibility is simply limitless. You feel she +has deceived you, sold information about you to your enemies, perhaps +even been unfaithful to you. All that is dreadful, and if it is true +you have a certain justification in crushing her. She is probably +helpless to prevent you. I want you to think of all these things and +then forgive her. I don't know exactly how you feel about her. I +mean whether you love her--as--well, as a lover. But that is of no +importance." + +Though Megan said this she saw on the contrary that it was of +tremendous importance, that perhaps it was the key to everything, and +her attack took a slightly different direction. "I want you to see +the beauty of giving love where it isn't returned or merited, isn't +even understood. Any man can give love where he is sure it is +returned. That perhaps isn't love at all. But to give it with no +thought of return, of merit, of gratitude even, that is ordinarily +the privilege of God. Now it is your privilege." + +Megan watched him anxiously for a visible effect of her words, saw +none in his profile and lowered eyes and became more warmly personal. + +"Oh, General, with all you have, and you have so much--yes, I +appreciate your real superiority--it hurts me to see you blind to the +possibilities that are in you. You are thinking of yourself always +as a man. Think of yourself as a child of God's love. Of Mah-li as +a child of the same love. Yes, and of me too, all of us His +creatures. Then there is no barrier between us. Do this thing I ask +you. Do it even blindly if you must, and I promise you, I am so sure +of it, I promise you you will know for the first time what happiness +is. You will know----" + +Words failed her suddenly and she turned her head to hide tears +starting from her eyes. She wiped them away with her finger-tips and +leaned her head against the glass, feeling in waves that exultant +happiness she had promised the General. + +The General did not speak nor even turn his head, and after a few +moments Megan began to sense an awkwardness in his silence. She had +been carried so far beyond the prescribed limits that the question of +whether she had been splendidly justified or only ridiculous now +seemed to hang on the result in him. + +"Please go back," she said unsteadily. + +The General leaned forward and gave the order. The car stopped, made +the turn and went back toward the yamen. They did not speak again. +Megan was afraid to add a word. As his silence continued she was +further convinced that she had said all there was to say, and +moreover that what she said had been justified. + +At the gate of the yamen the guards on the running-board jumped off +and held open the car door, standing at attention on either side. +The General got out and held his hand to help Megan from the car. +Still not wishing to look at him she looked only at his hand. She +saw it for the first time palm up, the fingers curled slightly toward +her in a gesture that seemed like a gracious according of mercy. As +she fleetingly touched it, she gave it a sudden involuntary pressure, +a pressure that was quickly returned. Then she walked hurriedly past +him, so hurriedly that it became almost flight. No one joined her, +and she reached her room alone. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXI headpiece] + +CHAPTER XXI + +Back in her room, Megan sat by the window and watched the daylight +slowly fade into a twilight opalescent with mists from the lake and +mountains. The essential lines of the roofs, of the moon door and +the rugged stones on their pedestals, stood more firmly revealed in +the slightly blurred atmosphere. Against the opposite wall the +downward spray of the willow trees had a grace too rarified, too +apparitional, for earthly things of sap, leaf and bark. The yamen +was more than ordinarily quiet, drilling had stopped, the telephone +no longer rang, slippered feet no longer passed in the court. Megan +sat quite still, looking out on the ideal province, the province of +low blue mountains, of rice and mulberry, glimmering canals, of a +lake with islands for pleasure houses, lotus gardens, little +pavilions of red lacquer, all bathed in the moist air, the freshness +of space and silence. And she saw even more clearly the ideal ruler, +a hieratic figure sculptured from the Eastern rock, wise, subtle and +patient, from whose hands, stretched toward his people, streamed +enlightenment and mercy. Megan knew that such a province, such a +ruler, can have no existence in this world, yet the capacity for +holding these images in her spirit filled her with a sense of power +and of rest. A knock on her door sounded sharply in the stillness. + +"Come in!" + +It opened and she saw Mr. Shultz standing outside. + +"Come in," she repeated and pointed to a chair opposite her by the +window. + +Mr. Shultz came toward her slowly, but instead of sitting down he +leaned over the back of the chair. In the twilight his face had none +of its ruddy look and was even more formless, his blue eyes were +almost invisible, only his teeth gleamed in a smile. The sound of +his heavy hands falling on the back of the chair suggested fatigue +and strain. + +"Tired?" she asked. + +"You bet," he answered wearily. + +"Don't you want to sit down?" + +"Haven't time. I just wanted to be sure you were all right. Been +out to-day?" + +"Only with the General." + +"The General go out?" he exclaimed. This seemed to surprise him. + +"Yes, we drove over to see a temple in the hills." + +Mr. Shultz gave a low whistle and after a pause devoted to +astonishment said: + +"Seen Mah-li to-day?" + +"I saw her this morning; she came in here. The General had sent her +away evidently, and she was on the point of leaving." + +"Did she try to get you to go along?" + +"Me! Of course not. Why should she?" + +Mr. Shultz made no reply. + +Megan said, "I was very worried about her. I am sure the General +sent her away because of what you said last night." + +"Maybe so," said Mr. Shultz, and a sardonic inflection to his voice +stirred her a little. + +"You shouldn't have turned him against her, you know. It really +wasn't for you to protect his domestic life." But Megan stopped at +once; the question of interference was one he might too easily seize +and retaliate on, and it had not been only a question of the +General's domestic life. "It wasn't very chivalrous of you," she +said rather weakly. + +Mr. Shultz thought. + +"No, it wasn't," he admitted, "but I said a little more than I meant +to when I got to talking. It made me so sore to think she would +double-cross him like that. She would just as soon see him shot in +front of her, so long as no one took her jade rings off her. Yes, it +made me sore all right. I think she had it coming to her." And he +murmured reflectively, "The damned little tart." + +"No, I don't think she did," said Megan. "And I don't believe a +Western man like yourself can have any conception of her position or +what her chance has been to be anything else." + +"Maybe not," said Mr. Shultz. "I suppose it is true the kid never +had much chance. Anyway, it does my heart good to hear one woman +stand up for another. But I guess," he added, "she don't seem much +like a real woman to you, more like a doll." + +Mr. Shultz was as ready to sentimentalize over Mah-li as to condemn +her. He seemed to think her as delightful as she was dangerous and, +except for moments when he was stirred to real anger, would no doubt +treat her with a leniency amounting to weakness. + +"How are the Communists getting on?" asked Megan lightly. "Will they +keep us awake to-night?" + +To her surprise, Mr. Shultz answered more gravely. "I'm afraid they +will." But he said no more, perhaps not wishing to frighten her. + +Megan wondered why she wasn't frightened. Because it seemed unreal, +and unlike the capture of Shanghai, it was an affair between Chinese. +How strange that even though these people now held all her interest +they still lacked some essential reality for her. She puzzled over +this but the possible night of alarms remained chimerical and apart +from herself. + +"Mist's clearing," exclaimed Mr. Shultz. + +She looked out the window and saw that in spite of the gathering +darkness the garden stood out more distinctly, as though breath had +evaporated off the surface of a mirror. Above the black carved +ridge-line of a roof she saw in a green sky a sharply burning star. + +"Wind from the bay," explained Mr. Shultz, but Megan was not +listening. In the same way had the relations of the General and +Mah-li been essentially unimportant, the vital point being that the +General should show mercy because Megan asked him to. Having +acknowledged this she allowed herself to go no further. But she +turned to Mr. Shultz with an anxiety in her eyes that made them, for +the moment, starry. + +"Don't worry!" murmured Mr. Shultz and leaning across the chair back +patted her arm. "Don't worry," he repeated as he turned and went out. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XXII + +The amah came in, turned on the light, and a moment later her supper +arrived. Megan ate it, conscious that she was tired now mentally and +physically. The food brought a warmth to her body and a soothing +dulness to her mind. It occurred to her that Mr. Shultz in spite of +his vulgarity reminded her faintly of Bob. She could not put her +finger on the resemblance, unless (she chose the best traits) it +might be a certain efficient and unimaginative acceptance of +difficult situations. Almost as casually it struck her that she +would probably never marry Bob. It seemed that she had just heard +those words spoken lightly by some one, not as though she herself had +formulated them. A pang so deep that it touched some raw inner root +shot through her. Megan dropped her spoon and rested her head in her +hands. It was better not to think when thinking produced only +unexpected and unhappy thoughts, dangerous thoughts. She resolved to +put Bob and the General out of her mind, to let their relations slide +past her for the time being, and of course take them up again +to-morrow. She managed to keep her mind blank by eating, with great +attention to the soothing effects of warm food. She looked at the +objects around the room once more, the gaudy quilts on the bed, the +painting of the monkeys, the dark blue bowl of plum, a replica of +which was in every room in the yamen, like an intimate personal +signature. Whose, she wondered, Mah-li's or the General's? + +Megan did not wait to smoke a cigarette, she dropped over on the bed +and lay inviting fatigue to overcome her. She fell asleep. + +She heard a knocking at her door that grew into pounding before she +could rouse herself to answer it. + +"Come in," she said sleepily. + +The General's orderly opened the door and brought her a note. It was +from the General and suggested she join the poker game. Megan's +watch said ten-forty. Rather late. But in view of what Mr. Shultz +had said it might be better to stay awake and spend the evening in +their company. She rather gingerly examined her mental condition, as +lately she had been examining her bruised body on awakening. It +seemed to be once more sound, empty, untroubled. + +Megan got up and brushed her hair carefully before Mah-li's mirror. +She powdered her face and added a touch of lipstick because she did +not want to look at all afraid or even anxious. Then she followed +the orderly across the court. + +As they passed the room with the telephone, she saw through the open +window that it was brightly lighted and four officers sat there +around a table playing mah jong. It was unusual for them to be up so +late, or at any rate when she had passed this room the night before +it had been darkened. She paused to look at the effect of the bright +window square in the darkness of the court: the four Chinese heads +seemed to be set in low relief against a shining wall, depth and +perspective were wiped out by the too strong contrast of light and +dark, the window square was flat like a picture hung on the night. +She looked curiously at the Chinese officers. They were playing +absently, not with the usual lightning quickness of a mah jong game, +and they talked in their low, teasing Chinese voices, their heads +close together over the table. The telephone rang, and one of them +pushed back his chair and got up. While he answered it the others +listened with an intensity that was like a heavy weight. Megan +turned and saw the face of the orderly beside her. He also was +puckered between the eyes by a childish bewilderment. When he saw +Megan looking at him, he turned and rather hurriedly crossed the +court to the room where the General held his poker games. She +followed him. + +As she came in the door she saw the same group about the table, with +the exception of Mah-li. Mr. Shultz got up, the General also, and it +was he who held out a chair for her, saying: + +"Come here, Miss Davis, and sit facing the south. That is the place +for the most honored guest." + +She sat down beside him in the chair he indicated, Captain Li on her +other side and Mr. Shultz across from her. The poker game with its +monotonous phrases continued. + +"Sweeten up here. How about a few royalties?" + +But there was a difference. Mah-li was not here. Although she had +scarcely spoken all that other evening, she had been all along the +disturbing element, not, Megan felt, through any fault of her own. +To her Mah-li was helpless in the midst of circumstance, and no +matter what she had actually done, Megan continued to count the final +humiliation to her suave and provocative person as a cruelty. But +now Mah-li was gone and the disturbing factor to-night was something +from without. The pressure of it was felt by all three of them and +seemed to push them closer against one another. Megan even felt +herself brought closer to them by the common danger, vague as it was. + +But she was still sleepy. She yawned once or twice and in spite of +polite efforts to swallow it the General noticed. + +"You are tired," he exclaimed. "My note must have wakened you. How +stupid of me!" + +"No, no," said Megan, "I'm entirely rested. Don't pay any attention +to me." + +The game continued, but like the officers at the mah jong game they +were all three preoccupied by something else. When the boy came in +with the tray of drinks they deliberately put down their cards to +fill their glasses. Mr. Shultz, instead of his whisky and soda, +drank in little determined gulps a small glass of brandy. The +betting was so listless that Megan, who by now understood a little of +the game, was bored by it. She was looking at the General's hand. + +"Why did you lay that down?" she asked once. + +"Really I don't know," he answered. + +He looked at her as though he were listening for something. After +his first flurry of welcome he seemed to have forgotten her presence. +For the moment, and until whatever threatened them passed, they +counted only as a group, they were being bundled roughly together and +their importance as individuals was in abeyance. Megan realized this +herself, feeling no longer keen interest nor antagonism toward any +one of them. This bored her too. She watched them play for half an +hour, till the smoke began to give her a headache. Then she wondered +if it would not be better to go back to bed. She yawned once or +twice again, partly from ennui, partly from nervousness. + +"I don't believe anything will happen to-night," she said to herself. +"At any rate I can't sit here waiting for it." + +She got up, but instead of leaving them she went over to the window +opening on the court. It had become chilly and clear. Little sudden +gusts of wind blew along the eaves, and the stars trembled as they do +on cool windy nights. + +As she stood there she heard from the direction of the city a distant +but distinct sound like the drawing of a stick along a picket fence. +It stopped, broke out again as if coming from several directions at +once. + +"What's that?" Megan exclaimed. + +She turned. Each man held an attitude of suspended action and +listened. No one answered her. + +"Firing?" she asked. + +The General nodded. The noise continued. + +"Or is it fireworks?" + +"No, not fireworks," said the General. + +Megan leaned out and found that she could see the lighted square of +window across the court and the officers sitting at the mah jong +table. They sat like figures of wood, motionless. Megan looked from +them to the group in the room behind her. Their attitudes were +almost identical; the same suspense held them. + +The firing stopped. + +Almost immediately the telephone rang, and Megan saw one of the +wooden figures start toward it with the jerk of something inanimate +drawn by a string. His replies were so low spoken she could not even +hear his voice. Presently he hung up the receiver and turned. Megan +saw that he looked at the seated men in silence and they looked back +at him. She thought he was smiling. She had the impression, even +from those whose faces were turned from her, that they were all +smiling. The one who had answered the telephone left the room and +came across the court. He knocked on the door. The orderly opened +it and he came in. Megan turned from the window to watch him. He +stood by the door; if he had been smiling he was stolid enough now. +The General spoke and he answered in short phrases. Mr. Shultz +listened intently, his eyes turning from the face of the officer to +Captain Li. As he listened he looked down at Captain Li with a smile +of contempt, hardy and open. + +"Well, that's that," he said crushingly. + +Captain Li did not look up. + +The General dismissed the officer, and Megan watched for him to cross +the court but he did not appear for a moment and when he did the +General's orderly followed him. He went back to the lighted room, +and at the table where the three others waited for him, he leaned +forward to speak to them, resting his hands on the table. They got +up and, leaving the tiles in disorder as they lay, one of them +suddenly turned off the light. + +With the blotting out of the lighted room and its figures of men, +with the cessation of small sounds of chairs scraping the floor, of +telephone calls, a barrier seemed to have suddenly broken down and +night poured unrestrictedly around the yamen, flooding the courtyard +with darkness and loosing a wind that rustled along the eaves and +brushed the branches of the willow trees restlessly against the wall. + +Megan went back to the table and sat down. A change had occurred +inside the room. The three men sat back in their chairs. The +pressure that had held them for a time against their wills, molding +them into a group, had relaxed and each was once more an individual. +Each only waited now, in order to prove it to the others, some +opportunity strongly to assert himself. As Megan had partaken +slightly in their fear she now experienced some of their relief and +an acute reviving interest. + +"Well," said Mr. Shultz, "so that is over." + +The General said, "It seems to be. I have just been thinking how +fortunate it is that men are divided so unevenly into the simple and +the astute. One astute say to a hundred thousand simple. + +"Yes," said Mr. Shultz, "like the Belgian's patty,--one hare, one +horse." + +"There is no other real division among them," continued the General, +"and no other is necessary." + +"Don't be too sure of being astute," said Mr. Shultz, and in spite of +his evident satisfaction over the turn of affairs in the city, his +words were clipped and irritable. He slammed his hand down. "Let's +cut this out. Three-handed poker is a waste of time. Yes, I know +how smart you feel just now. It is a grand feeling to get in first, +but don't forget who it was put you wise." + +The General also laid down his cards, and Captain Li, perceiving the +game to be over, put his hand down regretfully--it contained a full +house--and folding his arms sat gazing at the light. Mr. Shultz +turned in his chair and leaned his elbow on the table. He took a +cigar from his pocket and examined it, together with his highly +manicured nails, smelled it, then twisted it about in his mouth, +wetting it with his tongue, and catching it finally with a vicious +snap in his fine teeth. + +"Yes, don't forget," he continued, "don't forget that you'd have been +cold meat by now if it wasn't for me." + +The General looked at him with an expression of tolerance. + +"What is the matter with you, Shultz? It doesn't annoy me that you +helped me out in this matter. Why should it annoy you that you are +obliged to consider my safety as your own? To a certain extent we +are each dependent on the other." His eyes on Mr. Shultz beamed with +benevolence. It was evident that he had leaned heavily on him in the +last crisis, perhaps draining confidence and courage out of his mere +presence. "I'm surprised at you, Shultz, I really am. You don't +seem to love mankind as you should, all of them, the astute and the +simple"--he turned to Megan and his eyes were full of released good +humor--"as Miss Davis does," he added. + +"Hm," Mr. Shultz grunted, "I don't know what you are talking about." + +Facing Megan, the General poured himself a whisky soda. + +"I am talking about Miss Davis so I don't blame you for not +understanding. Miss Davis is much more complicated than you are, +Shultz. Although you are compatriots I should not wonder if you +found each other quite strangers most of the time. Isn't that so?" + +Mr. Shultz did not condescend to answer. He smoked on as though he +had not heard. + +"Miss Davis!" the General exclaimed, holding up his glass; Megan +measured his former disquietude by this too exuberant gesture and +excused it on that ground. "Miss Davis, it is a mistake, an esthetic +mistake, to try to understand you, because the whole produced is +probably better than any of the component parts. To analyze you +would be to reduce the ph[oe]nix to mere bones, skin and feathers." + +Megan looked at him astonished, and from him to Mr. Shultz, who had +turned and whose scrutiny held surprise and faint contempt. + +"Of course you are being absurd," said Megan. "There is no reason at +all why you and I should not understand each other. You yourself +once said men of the same race don't necessarily resemble each other +as tigers do tigers. You just wondered if Mr. Shultz and I might not +find each other strange. You see, it is up to the individual in each +case. All of us, with some effort and sympathy, can be reduced to +certain elements and consequently understood." + +Mr. Shultz got up and walked over to the phonograph. He began to +turn over the records. The General leaned toward Megan, and his +voice became less declamatory, more confidential. + +"But is it really understanding you want? I have an idea that +understanding doesn't enter very largely into your program. I have +an idea that what you really want, certainly where I am concerned, is +to change me, to make me over into some new image; the image of God, +but also, slightly, the image of Miss Davis, His creation and at the +same time hers. Isn't that so?" + +This statement brought a chill to Megan. It was not his manner of +making it, which she had already excused, but that stated from this +angle her intention did not appear as crystalline as she felt it to +be. + +"But of course I want to help you," she said. "The motives of those +who try to help are always suspect. But I don't see why you said +just that." + +And as she thought about it she became even resentful that he had +been able so deftly to uncover an aspect of her desire to convert +him, which she herself had been dimly aware of for some time, but +until now unwilling to admit. + +The General, watching her closely, now assumed his buffoon's +expression of mock alarm. + +"You are angry with me," he exclaimed, "because I have said what is +true. And it is you who tempted me to be truthful in the first place +by your own directness. But of course I was foolish to suppose you +meant me to follow you in that." + +Megan glanced at Mr. Shultz, who was turning over records, and at +Captain Li, who was apparently about to go to sleep. Captain Li did +not count, but she did not want to be spoken to like this before Mr. +Shultz. She lowered her voice a little. + +"Yes, I have been very frank with you and you have a right to be +frank with me in return. That is quite all right, I don't mind that. +I don't want you to think however--that is, I don't want you to +feel--that I am trying to force you to any change just to gratify +myself." + +The General was about to answer but changed his mind. He slowly took +a cigarette from his gold case and lighted it. + +"Miss Davis," he said finally after several puffs, "I want you to +believe that I consider it a privilege to be included in your regard, +even along with several hundred million other human beings." + +Megan did not answer. She looked down at her clasped hands and saw +with annoyance that she still wore the jade rings. After Mah-li had +left them with her there had seemed no other place to put them. She +tried covering one hand carelessly with the other but, ashamed of +this, she boldly laid her hand on the table so that the General could +see that she still wore them if he liked. He looked at them a moment +with a slight smile, then resting an elbow on the table he waved one +hand before her like a magician about to begin an incantation. A +tiny banner of smoke from his cigarette blinded her for a moment. + +"Yes, I find you truly remarkable," he murmured. "Tell me, please, +what gives you this confidence with which you go about the world? +You pass through dangers that are not dangers to you, through +temptations that are not temptations. You feel you are armed with a +glorious medicine that is a sure cure for all disorder, and you don't +see that your medicine (which so far as I am able to make out +consists of an indiscriminating universal love) would, if taken, +produce a ten times greater disorder. And as to this love you talk +about, I believe you are even mistaken in its true character. It +seems to me only an outlet for your irresistible energy. It is +energy. I have not seen in you any real concern over living +harmoniously with your fellow men." + +Megan twisted one of the jade rings on her finger and did not answer. +She looked even sullen. + +The General continued: "Truly there have been many moments when I +have wanted to laugh at you, and other moments when I have found you +admirable." He paused and his voice sank almost to a whisper. "And +even other moments--but perhaps you don't want me to speak of them. +I might astonish you beyond endurance." + +Megan looked quickly and instinctively toward the corner of the room +where Mr. Shultz stood turning over the phonograph records and +humming softly to himself. For the first time his solidity was +comforting to her. She looked down again reassured. The General +talked on in a low murmurous voice, like a bee drumming from flower +to flower. + +"Perhaps you believe us incapable of such moments. I am quite sure +you do. You have never seen our young men poring over stories whose +sentiments would seem very startling to you. I don't know why I say +our young men; our old men also. I could tell you of an officer of +mine who spends all his pay buying costly medicines from Szechuen, so +that his father, who is a very old man, may enjoy the society of a +young wife. Have you read any of our poetry, Miss Davis? Do you +understand our music? Have you seen paintings of women walking among +fruit trees, in which the fruit trees seem like women and the women +like fruit trees? Do you know that there has never existed a people +more purely artist and therefore more purely lover than the Chinese? +The fact is that it was to protect themselves from the excesses of +their own temperaments that our earliest ancestors patiently and +laboriously fortified themselves by a submission to ritual and +authority. Of course we still retain excesses, being civilized, but +our excesses are even now those they long ago decided to allow us. +Yes, we are completely enmeshed, Miss Davis, like caterpillars in +cocoons. I know that we seem very dull to you, because we no longer +depend on a personal inspiration. But you must remember that the +personal inspiration is apt to be dull to every one but to him who +feels it. He, of course, is carried away by the intoxication of +supposing he has created something. But because we refuse to be +carried away by it or to depend on it, you must not imagine that we +do not think with any profundity--nor feel with any passion." + +"Why do you tell me this? Is it really necessary that you explain +everything to me, even your occasional moments?" + +Megan spoke sharply and she hoped indifferently, but her face was +flushed. + +"Simply to show you how unaware you are of so many of the fundamental +impulses of people around you. Those," he added gently, "whom you +wish to help, to change. But don't be offended with me, Miss Davis. +It is true that my admiration for you is enormous, and it is true +also that I detest a lapse from suitability, a vulgar action. I +would never do anything unworthy of either of us." + +"No," said Megan, "I feel sure you wouldn't. Now don't let us talk +any more about it." + +"Certainly not if you find it so objectionable. But I wish you +didn't. It is very trying never to be able to approach you as one +human being to another. Because I see clearly I am not really a +human being to you, simply a problem, an object of attack, and +impersonal attack at that. Perhaps no one about you is entirely real +to you yet. You are too young, you have lived too little. And +because I am an alien I am even more remote than the others." + +"I'm not too young," said Megan indignantly. "I have lived much more +than you think, and I have had disillusionments and disappointments." + +The General smiled. "Not really? Why even your voice is unbruised." + +"And you are wrong too about my not looking on you as a human being. +I realize how human you are, and it is because I do that I wanted to +save you from what you just called the excesses of your temperament. +I was afraid in that instance we spoke of this afternoon (I won't +speak of it again because I know you did as I asked) that you might +be carried away by jealousy and revenge. I wanted you to put them +out of your heart and do a very beautiful act of mercy instead." + +"You accuse me of all excesses, even the grossest," exclaimed the +General. "Are all excesses alike to you? Because I drink often +until I am overcome, because I admire women easily, because I love +painting and fireworks, do you think I am capable of jealousy, of +anger, of revenge? Miss Davis, the things you speak of, the excesses +which make a man disgusting and ridiculous, were all overcome for me +by the patience and wisdom of my remotest ancestors. Those which +they have permitted me to keep may seem equally repellent to you, but +they do not seem so to me. No," he cried emphatically, "I am +incapable of these things you speak of. You will never make me over +in that way, Miss Davis. You will never turn me into a creature of +emotion and impulse and blind energy. No matter how much you urge me +to overcome qualities I don't possess." + +Megan hesitated over her answer, she really had not been listening +carefully to what he said, because she was more occupied in the +change which had come over him. His voice, his expression, had +changed. He did not seem as before to be amused, charmed, irritated, +as though he played with an unruly child, who in the excitement of +the game might even be expected to hurl a brick at his head. He was +suddenly neither amused nor charmed, he was not even irritated. She +did not know if he was angry but she felt that he must be more deeply +disturbed than she had ever seen him. She could not understand why. + +"But what is it?" she exclaimed. "If I misjudge you I am sorry." + +"Sorry!" exclaimed the General. "What could make you regret +anything! Your energy would merely carry you on to something else." + +"But what are we talking about? I don't want to hurt you." + +"Don't you?" cried the General. + +He made a move, as though he would get out of his chair, but suddenly +he sat down again and with a gesture swift but light he put his hand +over hers. Their eyes meeting were as startled as though they had +run into each other in an unexpected place. She could not doubt, +seeing his eyes, that he was as unprepared as she for the impulse +that he unthinkingly followed. But he did not move his hand away, +and Megan looked down at it. The pressure was so slight she scarcely +felt it, but as she looked at it a tingle of repulsion ran from his +fingers up her arm, a repulsion definite enough to be an actual +shudder of pain. It ebbed gradually, drained off, and a +counter-current of magnetism took its place. This flowed more +deliberately, expanding into slow heat, setting in motion a vibration +of the blood which hummed in her ears like a shell held against them. +A delicate, dim anæsthesia settled over her like a cloud, her pupils +dilated a little, her muscles relaxed. She felt herself slipping +loosely toward something that awaited her. The weakness that drew +her toward it made her feel it must be evil, yet it could not be so +simple as that. It was at once familiar and strange, compelling and +repellent, eternal and yet it passed from her like a breath. Megan +jerked her hand away and held it tightly with her other hand as +though it had been touched by fire. She breathed in astonished +little gasps, startled as much by the rescue as by the danger. Her +salvation seemed to have come from without and to be miraculous. She +faced the General coldly and said as though some one else had +prompted her: + +"What did you finally do about Mah-li?" + +She caught only a last glow on the General's face before it darkened +into obstinacy. He did not answer. He leaned back in his chair and +tapped on the table with his fingers. + +"What a pity," he said so low she could scarcely catch the words. +"For a moment then you were as lovely as you were meant to be." + +But Megan insisted. "Where is Mah-li now?" + +After a moment's silence, the General looked at her as coldly as she +at him. + +"She is probably dead," he said in his harsh official voice. + +"Probably dead! You don't mean you----?" + +"She allied herself with Communists. I allowed her to share their +punishment." + +"You did that! But you couldn't have done that when you knew how I +felt! I can't believe it of you, you couldn't have done that!" + +Megan was suddenly thrown again into a state of inner disorder. It +was quite true that she could not believe it of him. He had always +seemed to her so deeply vulnerable. Even in moments like those just +past, when his influence over her had been most powerful, there had +always seemed to be in him the germ of defeat. And now he had proved +himself impervious, adamant. + +"Yes, I did just that," he said. + +She could not find words to answer him. She sat looking at him in a +silence of anger, consciously giving way to its onrush because it +seemed to carry her further from that moment of weakness. Then words +broke from her in a hot torrent. + +"Then all you said just now was a lie!" she cried. "You are capable +of jealousy and of revenge. You were angry because she tried to harm +you, so you decided you would harm her more than she could possibly +harm you. And you were jealous, because she was young and lovely, +and she didn't love you. That was really her unforgivable sin, +wasn't it, that she didn't love you, so you revenged yourself for +that most of all!" + +Even as she spoke it struck Megan that anger was a strange thing for +her to be feeling so overwhelmingly at this moment. The pathos of +Mah-li's death had not yet touched her, the enigma of that +purposeless little life. And more in compunction for her own blind +violence she exclaimed: + +"Poor little Mah-li! Oh, I should have kept her with me. I +shouldn't have trusted her with you at all. But how could I know +what you were? A brute, yes, just a bully and a brute!" + +The General's voice broke in harshly. + +"Not at all." His calm was imposed now only by a mighty effort. The +nerve over his eyelid throbbed visibly. "Of course you would want to +see Mah-li's punishment in some such light. I knew that by the +reasons you advanced against it, by your hysterical manner when you +urged them. You were so carried beyond yourself that if it had been +of no particular importance I would have been glad to do what you +asked. But it was important, and not at all because of my individual +feeling. Mah-li behaved in a way which, for reasons I'm not able to +understand, you find admirable. Why, one would imagine that you +found rebellion admirable of itself! Well, fortunately society does +not. Mah-li had a definite place in society, just as a bowl is meant +to be shapely and to hold wine, tea or water. If the bowl were no +longer shapely and wouldn't hold anything I would throw it out. +Mah-li had made of herself an ugly, useless, an incongruous object. +I threw her out. Not from revenge or jealousy, which are as bad as +rebellion. No. But as a man who wants his house and his world full +of peace and propriety and harmony." + +Megan was silent. + +"Am I quite clear?" he insisted. + +"Oh, quite clear!" Megan suddenly began to laugh, and her laughter, +though low and suppressed, forced tears from her eyes. "But how +conventional you are! Yes, you are even willing, as you once said of +my generosity, to be conventional at any one's expense." Megan's +laughter was ready to burst into tears. "Oh, oh, I am so +disappointed in you!" she cried. "If you had done away with her for +any other reason. But to have done it through cowardice, yes, +cowardice, and such a paltry cowardice at that. Because you weren't +even really afraid. You just couldn't stand to see Mah-li forget her +place in the world. How horrible! Nothing could be more horrible! +I am ashamed for you!" + +A sudden knock on the door silenced her. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXIII headpiece] + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Mr. Shultz called from the window, "What's that?" + +The door opened and a gray-clad officer stepped in. He held on to +the door-knob and, swaying a little, looked wildly from face to face. +Then his eyes fixed themselves on the General. He began to talk in a +high-pitched steady stream of Chinese. Mr. Shultz came over to the +table and stood behind the General's chair. The General asked a few +questions. The officer answered. Mr. Shultz, in an effort to +understand, puckered his mouth and knitted his forehead. One +statement struck him like a blow. + +"Hell," he exclaimed and his face grew dark red. + +The officer stopped on a high note like a wail and stood breathing +heavily with his mouth open. The General nodded to him. He went out. + +Megan looked from one to the other, aware that something had gone +wrong, but aware also that it did not matter much now what it was. +The General, sitting back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling. +Mr. Shultz stood beside him, heavy but alert. + +"I had a hunch," he said, "that something like this would happen. +That first boy that came to bring us the news was all wrong. I saw +it in his eye. I never disregard a hunch but I don't regret it." + +"What is wrong?" said Megan. But no one answered her. + +"We'll have to do a lot of high-speed thinking now," said Mr. Shultz. +"You've got the brains, General, I leave it to you." + +Mr. Shultz went over to the window and leaned out into the dark court +listening to the stillness of the yamen. He came back. + +"The place is deserted," he said. "They're all gone. I can feel it." + +"Then it is useless for you to stay," said the General. "The sooner +you leave, I should say, the better." + +"What is the matter?" Megan repeated more insistently. + +Mr. Shultz looked at her as though he had forgotten her, but answered +pleasantly. + +"The Communists have taken over the city, Miss Davis. That was the +firing we heard. The troops went over to them. Even the General's +body-guard has deserted. The boys at the telephone got word what had +happened, came and gave us a false report and cleared out. This last +officer who just came was on guard at the arsenal. They have taken +that over. I'll bet," he added, turning to look down at Captain Li, +"our little friend here could tell us something about this." + +"As you leave," said the General, "you had better take Li with you +and shoot him somewhere outside. See if he is armed, will you, +Shultz?" + +Mr. Shultz leaned over the back of Captain Li's chair, jerked him to +his feet and felt his body expertly. + +"Nope," he answered, finding nothing. + +Captain Li, who had taken his mauling with the absent expression of a +child being undressed for bed, on being released as absently sat down +again. + +The room was extraordinarily still. For a moment they all sat +listening to the stillness which pressed in upon them the +completeness of their desertion. + +Megan thought how absurd this all was. She had expected a night of +alarms and bloodshed and yet it had all come about in a way peculiar, +apparently, to China. The General had simply been sold out. Nothing +more would happen unless he insisted on remembering that Captain Li +also had forgotten his place in society. + +Mah-li of course was safe. If she was to share the fate of the +Communists it was certain that she was now sharing their triumph. +The General had failed there at any rate. She repeated this to +herself with an exultant satisfaction. He had tried to preserve a +decorum that was already a corpse. And perhaps since he had failed, +since he had been forced to do as she asked, it might be possible to +forgive him. Even now, though she was still ready to heap every +reproach on him, she felt an obscure, imperative necessity to +reinstate him. + +"I think we'd better take Li with us," said Mr. Shultz, breaking the +silence. "But I don't like to shoot him unless I have to. Come +along, General, let's get going." + +The General did not answer, and made no movement of getting up. He +stared at Mr. Shultz, and Megan saw on his face the same expression +of doubt she had seen before, when he had spoken of Doctor Strike and +the safe-conduct pass. It was a doubt that struck at the deepest +roots of his beliefs. + +"What's the matter?" demanded Mr. Shultz. + +"Do you mean," said the General, "you want me to come with you?" + +Mr. Shultz looked at him in astonishment, and as the General's +meaning dawned on him he was even embarrassed. He said nothing. + +The General spoke haltingly and in a low apologetic voice. "But I am +the one they are after. If I come with you your chances of getting +away are practically nothing." + +Mr. Shultz suddenly regained his assurance. + +"Oh, go to hell," he said jovially. "What do you think I am!" + +The General dropped his eyes and bent his head. Megan saw he was +undergoing a deep humiliation; that this generosity, because he had +been unable to admit its existence, was cutting him to the quick. +She wanted him to be so humiliated and so wounded. She wanted him to +be smitten, as by a scorching bolt, with this unlooked-for example of +a generosity that not all her words or those of Doctor Strike had +been able to convince him of. Not their words, not even the obvious +trend of their lives, had touched him. Now, strangely, Mr. Shultz +had been made the instrument. Mr. Shultz was not the man she would +have chosen. This particular quality was perhaps the only estimable +one he possessed, but he had presented it nevertheless, flawless, +intact, indisputable as a diamond. + +"We'd better make straight for the bay," he said. "The railroad +won't be possible. Where's your car, General?" + +"About a quarter of a mile up the road. The officer who just came +drove from the arsenal in it. He left it there in case the yamen was +already in their hands." + +"Will he take it away?" + +"No, he won't want to be caught in it." + +"Then if we get going, it may still be there. It is our only chance +I'd say." + +"And at the bay, what then?" + +"There is my launch. I leave it in a different place every few days. +They're not apt to know where and only the sampan will be at the +landing, a sampan like any other. To-night it should be at the +landing where they load the junks of contraband rice." + +"Can the launch get us down the bay?" + +"I think so. Anyway, it can get us away from here." + +"Well, let us go then." + +Mr. Shultz went over to the door of a small closet used as a pantry. +He opened it and disclosed the boy who served their drinks, asleep +under shelves laden with bottles. Mr. Shultz shook him until he +woke, then taking him by the shoulder propelled him across the room +to the phonograph. He took the first record he came to and put it on +the machine, turned the crank and adjusted the needle. The bright +and alien Italian magic vibrated once more through the Chinese room. + +"You keep this going. Must wantche walkee, savvy?" + +The boy nodded and leaned anxiously over the instrument. + +"Another round before we go?" asked Mr. Shultz, coming back to the +table. "Have a little Dutch courage, General? Miss Davis?" He +looked over the litter of glasses, cards, and trays full of +cigarettes and ashes. Then he poured himself a swallow of brandy and +gulped it down. His eyes fell on Captain Li again. "Come on, big +boy, and just remember, whatever happens to us now happens to you +too." + +He jerked Captain Li out of his chair. The General said a few words +in Chinese to him and Mr. Shultz pushed him forward. The General +caught his arm. + +"If you'll follow me," he said to Mr. Shultz and Megan, "I think it +would be better to go out this way." + +They passed into another room, unlighted except for the light coming +from the door left open behind them. They crossed two rooms and an +empty dark court, turning down a narrow runway between houses from +which they came out on an open space. Megan supposed it to be a +garden because the gravel of ordered walks crunched under their feet +and in the gusty wind the dark trees about them made sudden abrupt +gestures against the pallor of starry sky. After the smoky room they +had left the air seemed fresh and even sharp, full of the agitation +of hidden rustling leaves and grass. They came to a gate which the +General opened himself. + +"The road is over there," he said. "The car, if it is still waiting, +is along this stretch." + +They crossed a field. Ahead of them, sprinkled at an indefinite +distance in the dark, were a few trembling lights. The field was +full of mounds, some topped with what seemed replicas of houses. +Graves. Once a fetid odor drifted across their path like a warm +current in the cold air. Then their feet touched the smoother +surface of the road, and they almost collided with a car that, +without lights, waited there. + +"Well, this is luck," exclaimed Mr. Shultz. "Think of the old bus +being here!" + +The General's driver sat at the wheel. He had been waiting stolidly +and he showed no surprise at seeing them. Perhaps he was expecting +them. He climbed down without a word and opened the door. The +General and Mr. Shultz explained to him the route he was to follow. +The General and Megan got in and Mr. Shultz sat between them, Captain +Li took one of the folding seats. Against the faintly luminous +square of the windows the chenille fringes made fanciful patterns. +The car started. + +"Looks as though we're going to get a good break all around," said +Mr. Shultz with satisfaction. + +The sound of the motor was comforting and enveloped them in security. +That the car should have been there, that it should function so +perfectly, seemed to mean they were intended to get away unharmed. +Mr. Shultz's hunch evidently told him so, and Megan was inclined to +believe he was right. Mr. Shultz talked in a low, agreeable voice, +like a host who feels the responsibility for his guests. He talked +to Megan more directly. + +"Well, this will make something for you to write home about, Miss +Davis; your friends will enjoy all your Chinese adventures." + +"Yes," she answered absently. + +From time to time he leaned across to peer through the window. + +"Nice clear night," he said, "good wind. We'll be down the bay in no +time. If my launch isn't where it ought to be, we'll take a junk. +There is bound to be at least one there, probably more. How much +money have you got with you, General?" + +"Oh, five or six hundred dollars." + +"Well, I always carry some. I wish, though, I had more on me +to-night, though sometimes that's the worst place for your money." + +He kept up a continuous comment to divert them, because he was +doubtful in some degree of all of them. He himself needed no +distraction; he had the peculiar resolution of a man who goes into +danger continually in order to make money, the resolution, more +dogged than courage, more suave than courtesy, of a good salesman. +Every thing of the chancey, the romantic, was so far removed from +him, he seemed to operate so definitely by rules that could not go +wrong for him, that he gave an illusion of safety. Megan accepted +safety and was conscious of the General. + +She thought nothing coherent about him. His refusal to accept the +conversion she had tried to reveal to him had been followed so +rapidly by his own failure and downfall that she was not able to +strike a balance of feeling. Bitterness, satisfaction and even pity +contended with one another. + +The road grew rougher, and they were jolted mercilessly. Megan took +advantage of the movement to turn her head so that beyond the bulk of +Mr. Shultz she saw the General's profile against the window. Seen +only as a dark outline, the humorous lines, the effeminate softness, +the occasional arrogance, all she disliked in him, were not visible; +only the profile detached itself, holding as in carven rock its look +of race, its sureness and purity of line. Listening to Mr. Shultz's +voice, Megan stared at the General with a growing sense of dull and +helpless regret as though she saw before her the now useless charm of +the dead. + +The car stopped suddenly. Mr. Shultz let down a window and leaned +out. + +"Well, here's the bay anyhow." + +The General said nothing. Megan saw an embankment sloping away from +them and at its foot a small landing stretching into an indeterminate +expanse of water. On the shore by the landing a lantern hung on a +bamboo pole. Mr. Shultz peered intently into the darkness. + +"Do you see your launch?" asked the General. + +"Not a sign. But I see a sampan alongside the landing. It may be +mine." + +"Are you sure this is where you ordered it to be?" + +"Sure." + +The driver stopped his engine and turned their lights off. Their +eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, and they heard the quick, +angry lap of water on the shore and the blowing of the wind. The +General pointed up the shore. + +"I see people there and a junk. Perhaps they are loading." + +Megan, following the direction he pointed, made out a dark cluster +that might be men and, dimly on the water, the outline of a junk with +three masts, the foremost slanting sharply forward and faintly +illumined from below by a light in the bow. + +"Loading rice," said Mr. Shultz. "Some of your internal revenue, +General." + +He leaned further out and peered around, then drew his head in again. + +"Now let's figure this out," he said. "If the launch is not here, +they have either taken it, or some accident or carelessness is +responsible. But we can't wait around here and I think the junk is +our best chance. The sails are hoisted. In five minutes we can be +aboard. What do you say?" + +"We must get aboard," said the General, but when Mr. Shultz opened +the door none of them moved, as though each was reluctant actually to +precipitate any action. Finally Mr. Shultz climbed heavily out, and +the rest followed him. They stood outside the car, exposed once more +to the vast insecurity of the night. Then they started down wide +steps cut in the bank. Megan could see the loom of the junk below +them and a great white eye staring from the bow. It was farther out +from shore than she had at first realized. The General's steps +lagged. Half-way down he stopped and said: + +"They are not loading. No one has moved. There hasn't been a sound. +They are soldiers put here to guard the landing. It is no use, +Shultz." + +Megan tried to see his face; there was not enough light to make out +his expression, but his voice had been flat, a little breathless. It +showed no excitement, even no fear, because he knew suddenly that +there was no hope for him. From the moment when firing broke out in +the distant city he had been lost. He knew it now. + +Megan stepped close to him and whispered, "Don't give up like this. +Don't." + +"Oh, it's not so good," said Mr. Shultz. Megan saw him feel his hip +pocket. "But we can't turn back now. They are coming to meet us." +And he leaned toward Megan. "If they start firing before we get +down, you run back and get in the car." + +Megan watched the dark group moving along the shore toward the foot +of the steps. In a moment, if they went on down, they would be in +their midst. If they turned and went back they would, she supposed, +be fired on. And where would they go? The group of soldiers stopped +and stood apparently looking up at them. + +"Oh, come on," said Mr. Shultz. "They are only Chinese soldiers. I +can wangle this." + +They started down once more. At the base of the steps was a narrow +strip of beach. They stood in the light from the lantern, which made +a circle around them like the halo around a dim moon. On its edge +the fifteen or twenty soldiers hesitated, huddled against one +another. One was elbowed by a companion into the circle of light and +Megan saw his bare feet and the shine of his cheek-bones, but having +been forced forward, he only smiled foolishly and tried to step back. +But more were coming, pushing in from the dark and their shifting, +uneasy movements were forming a semicircle on the steps, cutting them +off from all but the landing. Mr. Shultz looked them over. + +"Don't let them hear your voice," he said to the General. "Maybe +they won't know you under your cap. Keep an eye on Li." + +He took out a cigar and with an ostentatious lack of hurry or concern +lighted it in his cupped hands. He threw the match aside with a +sweep of his arm. Then he stood quite still, puffing smoke from +between his teeth, still holding the cigar. He looked at the +soldiers, taking stock of the barrier they made, stupid, even timid, +but dismaying by mere numbers. + +The wind blowing off the water caught loose hairs and whipped them +across Megan's eyes; it made a small but disturbing whistling in her +ears, and filled her with a penetrating chill. Her jaw began to +tremble with cold. Why didn't Mr. Shultz do something? + +Mr. Shultz stepped abruptly out on to the landing and leaning over +the side called in a low voice, "Wake up, you louse." + +A small boy's head, with startled goggle eyes, rose from the sampan +into the light. + +"Well, it isn't my sampan after all," said Mr. Shultz casually +surprised. "But it will have to do. Come on." He leaned down to +cast off the mooring. + +The General took Megan's arm and made a step forward, but at the same +moment Captain Li caught her other arm and jerked her away. The +unexpectedness of his movement gave it strength. She stumbled, and +he gave her a push that sent her out on the landing. Then he began +to shout, to wave his hands. Unable to move, she stood watching the +hideous activity of his puppet-like figure. Suddenly he snatched the +General's cap off and his gesture revealed a violence of purpose of +which his feeble body was incapable. His falsetto voice, as though +aware of its impotence, broke into sobs. + +"He has gone mad!" cried Megan. She turned to Mr. Shultz and saw him +straighten up, the mooring rope slack in his hand. She was horrified +to see that he looked undecided, puzzled. She had been so confident +he would be able to do something. + +A crashing report made her wheel around. The General's arm was still +raised, still holding a revolver, and Captain Li beside him stood +swaying on his feet, poised in the attitude of a man about to catch a +ball, his mouth open, but suddenly and astonishingly silent. As she +watched he crumpled to the ground. + +The General stood alone in the ring of soldiers. + +Megan for the last time turned to Mr. Shultz. The indecision in his +eyes was terrible. He looked at her almost pleadingly. Then she saw +resolution take form in them. He picked her up under the arms and +dropped her into the sampan. Megan scrambled to her knees and caught +hold of the gunwale, but Mr. Shultz jumped heavily down beside her +and shoved clear of the dock. Megan caught his arm, trying to hold +him back. She clutched at the dock. + +"Don't leave him!" she cried. + +"No use," said Mr. Shultz. "I've got to get you out of here." + +Megan repeated stupidly, "Don't leave him!" + +She saw the General standing on the shore in the midst of the +soldiers who had hesitatingly, even apparently good-humoredly, closed +around him, leaving only an opening on the side of the water, where +he could not now escape. No one had touched him. He stood still, +head bent a little forward, searching the darkness for Mr. Shultz, +for Megan, who were abandoning him. The light of the solitary +lantern shone on his hair ruffled into an unaccustomed disorder. He +looked young, fugitive, afraid. She could not see his eyes but she +felt sure they were fixed now on her, she felt they were asking her +for something, for what she had always promised him, her medicine, +her courage, her salvation. Now was her last chance. One word would +give it all to him. One word would save him. But what word? Only a +low cry escaped from her lips, an inarticulate dim signal of one +human creature to another. + +But the General must have heard. He lifted his head, suddenly erect, +and Megan saw that with one hand he nervously, but with dignity, with +a final necessity for decorum, smoothed back his ruffled hair. + +The small boy poled, the current caught the sampan and drew it from +the shore. There was only a tangle of struggling figures now on the +bank. Some one knocked the lantern into the water and night swirled +over Megan. + +The General was gone. + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXIV headpiece] + +CHAPTER XXIV + +The little coast steamer rolled laboriously up to Shanghai. Mr. +Shultz got a deck chair and dragged it forward so that Megan, who was +very seasick, could get the breeze. She lay back with her eyes +closed, trying by will power to hold off nausea. Mr. Shultz sat +beside her. He told her about a scheme he had to get up radio +programs in Shanghai, for broadcasting to the Chinese, make the +Chinese firms do it as advertising. When it got cold he put his coat +over her, and once he gave her a swallow of brandy with disastrous +results. Gradually he stopped talking and finally sat looking at her +with clouded eyes. He could not entirely forgive her for having been +there. It was her presence that had prevented his taking a chance on +getting the General off. Of course he had to save a white lady but +he had wanted to save the General too. When he thought of how he had +been obliged to watch the General's end he was filled with an +enormous despondency and helplessness. + +"Well, they got him," he would repeat to himself, "they got him, the +sons of bitches." Then he would call the Chinese steward again. + +"Boy, you catch whisky soda, chop chop." + +Megan, turning in her chair, saw his head nodding forward. + +There had been little sleep for either of them on the junk. When +they climbed aboard the crew had stared at them stupid and insolent, +paying no attention to Mr. Shultz's demands to see the laodah. But +Mr. Shultz had gone boldly aft, followed by Megan, and for long +moments she had listened to his voice, now creamy with persuasion, +now breaking into sharp spattering threats. Finally, under pressure +of a roll of bills and a Mauser nestling against his ribs, the old +Chinaman by the tiller had given in. Three or four of his crew +manned the capstan to weigh anchor, singing a strange broken song, +others sheeted home the sail that had been idly slatting in the wind. +Presently Megan heard the slap of water against the blunt bow. When +they were well under way, Mr. Shultz led Megan into the cabin so that +she might stretch out on one of the bunks, but she only stood a +moment inside the door, looking hopelessly through the thick air at +the hostile eyes of the Chinese women, at the babies on the floor, +the ducks and fish hung against the bulkhead, the shrine at one end, +smelled the mixed odor of hot rancid grease, opium and incense, and +staggered out again. Mr. Shultz rolled his coat up for her, and she +lay cold and desperately seasick, flat on the deck near the tiller. + +At last day broke underneath the world and light began slowly to +flood the sky with ripples of light from below, crossed by flying +wedges of birds. The sun came and tormented her all day, its direct +fire searching under her eyelids. By mid-afternoon they reached the +mouth of the shallow river, too late, Mr. Shultz told her, for the +flood tide, so they hung for hours, swaying giddily between the two +blazing mirrors of sea and sky. The women did their cooking, smoke +curled from the vent hole in the cabin, and the laodah had a game of +mah jong with two of the more decorative of them. Fish were caught. +A baby wailed. The delay was of no importance. Gradually the two +mirrors dimmed and burnished again into crimson. Night came. The +world for Megan became the cycle of day and night. Endless. + +Then out of emptiness she heard water under the bow again. It was +very early in the morning, still dark, when they came to the junk +anchorage off the low-built city. Mr. Shultz called a sampan, that +like an unsubstantial water insect carried them under the shadowy +hulls of the junks to the Bund, where a small coast steamer lay +waiting as squat and respectable as a boarding house. + +In the basin-stand of the cabin was a cake of fresh pink soap. +Megan, holding it to her nose, smelled Europe once more and fell over +on the transom for a few hours of troubled sleep. + +The jetty at Shanghai was crowded with passengers just off a tender +from one of the big liners, such a crowd as Megan herself had landed +with so short a time before. Now in her soiled Chinese robe she sat +huddled on a bench while Mr. Shultz went to a near-by alley off +Nanking Road, across from the Palace Hotel, to get a taxi. Megan +could not endure to wait in the Palace while he got one, but here on +the jetty no one particularly noticed her. + +In the taxi they sat in silence, driven recklessly along the winding +Avenue Foch between lines of tangled barbed wire. It seemed strange +to see the barricades again, strange to them just risen out of China +like drowned men from deep water. As they neared the Jacksons' +house, Megan said: + +"Forgive my saying this, but I've been so dependent on you, you won't +mind. You must promise me that if you need any money now or any +help, you'll let me know." + +"Well, that is very kind of you, I am sure," said Mr. Shultz. "But I +sent some money to Shanghai a few days ago for safe-keeping. I sent +it in my name. If it is safe I'm fixed. If it isn't, I've got other +lines out. You forget, Miss Davis, I'm a financial adviser!" + +When they reached the house she said, "You will come in with me?" + +"Not now. I'll be around some time later." + +They shook hands lingeringly. + +"You've been splendid," said Megan. + +"Thanks. You have too." + +"No, no, you were the one. You were splendid." + +Mr. Shultz repeated, "Well, thanks." + +They were friends now, not so much because they had shared danger, as +because each had found something in the other to forgive and had +forgiven it. He watched her up the steps and saw the door opened +before he drove off. + +The number one boy stood at the door glassy-eyed with amazement at +the sight of Megan in her Chinese dress. + +"Missie no have got," he stammered. "Master no have got. Other +master have got." + +"It must be Bob," thought Megan, and at the door of the little +drawing-room she paused, trying to control the sudden pounding of her +heart. + +But it was not Bob. Doctor Strike, his head wrapped in bandages, sat +in a chair by the window. His eyes were closed, his mouth, relaxed +from its austere tightness, was slack, a little open. He was asleep, +and his sleep exposed him to her; he was sick and old, and he had, to +all appearances, failed. Megan now knew how much. She had herself +measured the very depth of his failure. As she looked at him, his +eyes opened. Dazed with sleep he looked at her unknowingly, and +suddenly they lighted from within. + +"Miss Davis!" he cried. + +Megan went to him and took both his outstretched hands. + +"Don't get up, you are still ill. Were you badly hurt?" + +"Yes, hurt," he repeated. + +A little red plush stool, with a book on it, stood by his feet. +Megan pushed the book off and sat down. He still held her hand, +gripping it with nervous bony force, not taking his eyes from hers. + +"I've prayed for you, my child," he said, "every hour since. I thank +God." + +"It's all right," said Megan, "I'm quite safe." + +"And you saved me!" he cried. "Yes, I know that. I can't forget it +ever. You saved me." + +"Don't," said Megan, pained by his intensity, "Don't. What does that +kind of saving mean?" + +"It means life," said Doctor Strike roughly. + +His eyes searched her up and down, seeing her Chinese dress, even the +jade rings on her fingers. + +"Did you get the General's telegram?" she asked. + +"Three days ago." + +"He picked me up at the station and took me on a train down to his +capital. I was very kindly treated." + +"Good, good." The Doctor's eyes softened. "You were well treated. +That's good." + +"Yes, very. He meant to return me. But trouble broke out there. An +uprising. We were trying to get away and just at the last moment he +was killed. An American who was with him, a Mr. Shultz, brought me +back." + +But Megan saw that at the word of General Yen's death Doctor Strike +had ceased to listen to her. His eyes looked beyond her to take in a +greater perspective. She stopped and waited for him to speak. + +"It is hard to believe," he said at last, "hard to believe. I've +known him to be in danger so often. But he has always got through. +Now he is actually dead. Well, then it is all over. It is finished. +That is what your gift of life means, my dear, it means we can still +go on, that the final reckoning, when our successes and our failures +are summed up, is not yet upon us. + +"But he is dead and we can't do anything more for him, we can't help +him, we can't save him. It looks as though we had failed." The +Doctor stopped and his mouth of an old man trembled. "Perhaps we +can't be sure," he said in a lower voice. "Perhaps we can't be sure. +He said, 'I am the Way.' The way may stretch farther than we think. +It may not end here with the end of life. The General too believed +in a Way, another Way. Perhaps they meet." Doctor Strike dropped +his head in his hands. He had forgotten Megan. "We must trust to +the mercy of God," he said. + +They sat in silence, both thinking of the General and of that mercy +to which they at last so unwillingly relinquished him, both only +fearful that since it must recognize justice, it might be less +perfect than their own. + + + +THE END + + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78108 *** |