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.