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.