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.