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."