"Please do not thank me. I would be lacking in politeness to have done otherwise. Besides," she added, "it was the General's wish. It is he you must thank." Megan looked at her, surprised at the touch of malice in her voice. It pleased Mah-li for some reason that she should now be dependent on the General, even to a slight and fortuitous extent; not in any sense comparable to Mah-li's dependence, which had the weight of five thousand years behind it. For five thousand years there had been Mah-lis, with fragile hands, with silks, with eyebrows in an imposed line of fixed decorum. For what a short time indeed had there been Megans, whose independence was so new, so slippery, and perhaps even a little unstable. Megan took one of Mah-li's hands and pressed it warmly. "I hope you will come and see me again," she said. Mah-li murmured, "Thank you," and went out. The servant came in and cleared away the remains of her breakfast. Megan took a chair over by the window and sat where she could look out. Her interview with Mah-li had not been satisfactory, but it was the first she had ever had with a Chinese and it would have been foolish to expect much from it. Soldiers were drilling on the road somewhere beyond the walls, in the house the telephone rang and the Chinese voice answered it monotonously and persistently. Perhaps an hour passed, but Megan was scarcely conscious of it; the minutes passed over her like soundless waves that never break, flowing from an unimaginably distant source. [Illustration: Chapter XIII headpiece] CHAPTER XIII Some one knocked at the door. Megan said, "Come in" several times before it was opened. The young orderly with the salmon-pink silk cord about his neck stood in the doorway. He said something she did not understand, stood aside, and after a perceptible moment the General came into the room. He walked over to her and, clicking his heels together in the proper manner, bowed. He carried his cap under his arm. "Good morning," he said. "I hope you are better." "Yes, much better." He drew up another chair to the window and when he was seated took out a gold cigarette case. He was smiling in a conventional manner with little nods of the head as he offered her a cigarette. "I have Turkish and Virginia tobacco." It had occurred to her that this meeting might be to him as startling in its novelty as to her. The assurance gave her more confidence. She took a cigarette from him and the General snapped a gold briquet (he was really most opulently provided), lighting first her cigarette then his. "Are you quite comfortable here?" he asked. "Do you like this room?" "Yes, it is very nice. I have been enjoying the view of the garden. And that painting on the wall, I admire that very much."