A charming studio was fitted up for me at the Summer Palace on our return. Her Majesty saw how much more satisfactory it was for me to have a proper place to work in, where I would be undisturbed, and even had she not seen the utility of a studio, I think she would have granted my request for one, for she was always kind and considerate. Upper windows of plate-glass were put into the north side of one of His Majesty’s Throne-rooms, behind the Imperial loge. It looked over a charming terrace of the garden. The days were long, and it was a delight to live and breathe, and the quiet of the studio, where I could work at leisure, made me resume my work with renewed vigor. I began at once to finish up the small sketch of the St. Louis portrait, which Her Majesty wished to keep, and then to put the final touches on the two portraits begun at the Summer Palace. The Throne-room that was now my studio had only one disadvantage. It was so near the Theater that on theater days I could hear the music and the voices of the actors. And on those days, the court outside my windows was filled all day with eunuchs and Their Majesties’ attendants, moving to and fro. I decided if it was necessary for me to go into Peking at any time, to take a “Theater day” to do so. One Theater day I did go into Peking, and on my return to the Summer Palace the next day I found that His Majesty the Emperor had taken advantage of my absence to occupy his Throne-room the day before, for I found his Theater program, distinguishable by being written on Imperial yellow paper, and he had also left a few papers scattered around with characters and phrases written with the “Vermilion Pencil,” which may only be used by His Majesty. On one paper he had evidently been trying to draw a plan of the part of Manchuria where the war operations were then being carried on. He had also drawn a part of the Great Wall of China, and the dividing line between China and Manchuria. So the Emperor, notwithstanding his stoical smile, his apparent unconcern, was not indifferent to affairs in Manchuria. He was watching the course of events there, and he probably worried and grieved as much as even the Empress Dowager, about what might be the result for China. He had probably schooled himself to appear indifferent. The ceremonies and festivals at the Palace had been going on as usual, but the two central figures of all these functions had their own secret anxieties and cares. The Emperor was following the campaign in Manchuria, and the Empress Dowager was probably planning and thinking of the best course for China to follow.