Megan watched Mah-li with a smile, as we watch children whose gestures are so pretty, whose motives are so helplessly transparent, that even their vanity, greed and deceit have the charm of being reduced in scale and harmless. It seemed to her that her smile was shared by the General. [Illustration: Chapter XVI headpiece] CHAPTER XVI Megan slept out the rest of the afternoon until well after dark. At about nine o'clock she ate again and while she was eating the General's orderly brought her a note. "My dear Miss Davis [she read], will you not join us in a little game of cards, with which we are trying to pass the evening hours?" She was about to refuse but thought that perhaps over the friendly relaxation of cards she might go far toward winning the confidence of the General and Mah-li. She followed the orderly into the outer room and across the court into a room where at a table under a light sat the General, Captain Li, Mah-li and a man she had not seen before. He got up as Megan came in and walked around the table to shake hands with her. He was a stout man, with a red face merging into a bald head; his eyes were clear, childlike, blue, and when he smiled at her his teeth were the most dazzling and regular she had ever seen. His smile gave a sudden ingenuousness to a face gross and inexpressive. His clothes of an American business man were light gray, lately pressed and foppish. "I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Davis. I am the General's financial adviser, Mr. Shultz. I've already heard a lot about you from the General." He looked steadily at her as he spoke and there was a not too faint insolence in his look. Megan, a little dazed, murmured: "How do you do." The General said: "Good evening, Miss Davis. We are playing poker; as it's an American game I thought you might like to join us." "No, thank you, I'll look on," said Megan. "I don't play poker. And besides I have no money." "I'll be glad to carry you," suggested Mr. Shultz. His voice was a fine tenor, marred by the looseness and indecision of his accent. "It's just a little friendly game," he added, "the kind of friendly game where you gotta lose to the General. Captain Li and I'll be out a few thousand before the evening is over." "I think I'll watch." Megan sat down in a vacant chair by Mah-li, who was delicately dealing the cards. "But do you play?" she asked her. Mr. Shultz had sat down opposite them. "Sure she plays," he said. "All these girls play and Mah-li is a terror. She is the only one here dares get money off the General."