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.