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."

"Do you? I am glad, because I like it too." The General turned in his chair to look at it. "It is by an artist of the early Ming dynasty. It is not very old as things are old here in China. But I always take it with me. It possesses a great variety and excellence of brush stroke."

They smoked in silence, neither looking directly at the other. A large ash fell on to Megan's lap.

"I will send you ash-trays," said the General. "You must excuse this house. I use it now as my yamen, but it is not my house. It is the pleasure house of a friend of mine."

"Is it in town?"

"No, it is on the lake. You will see by and by, it is a very beautiful location."

There was another silence. The General looked so fixedly at the end of his cigarette that Megan was able to look at him. He was smaller than she realized, his gray uniform fitted dapperly over a shoulder too plump, there was a smoothness about his skin and hair that was unpleasant to her, and even his hands were faintly repellent by their abnormal delicacy.

He said suddenly, as though he had been turning it over and had come to a decision, "I want to assure you again that you are quite safe in my house. I don't want you to feel that you are in an equivocal position."

"Why insist so?" thought Megan. "I would have felt no concern over my safety if he hadn't brought it up." She looked at him more sharply and was disconcerted to realize she could be so affected by a physical repugnance. She was quite unprepared both for the repugnance and its effect.

"I feel," she said, "I am in a position requiring an explanation."

The General raised his eyebrows a little and his eyes appeared absurdly prominent.

"But your position is very mysterious to me! I myself don't know why I should find you in Chinese territory, early in the morning, surrounded by an unfriendly crowd, from whom incidentally I saved you."

"I know you saved me. I am grateful to you for that, but I had a perfect right to be in Chinese territory. I had a safe-conduct pass signed by you."

"By me!" The General's eyes began to show amusement and astonishment. "By me! Then is it possible Doctor Strike was with you?"

"Yes, we were together. He was struck on the head by a coolie with a carrying-pole. I got him in a rickshaw and it went off with him. I was left behind but it was not his fault, he was unconscious. We also had with us five children and two women from St. Andrew's Orphanage in Chapei. But Doctor Strike explained all this to you. We were relying, as I said, on a safe-conduct pass signed by you."

"Ah, these safe-conduct passes!" The General waved them aside with one hand. "You people expect too much of them. Do you suppose the coolie who struck Doctor Strike knew of your pass, or would have respected it if he had?"

Megan waited to see if he would express any concern over Doctor Strike's fate, but that aspect of it did not seem to occur to him. She said rather bitterly:

"I see now your safe-conduct was worthless. But I did not know at the time. You see, I have lived all my life in a country where if a situation comparable to this were possible, such a pass would be effective. The whole training and temper of the people would make it so."

The General looked at her, doubtful how to take this.

"Do you speak seriously?" he asked. "Where is this country you are talking about that has no mob spirit, no race hatred, but only a perfect respect for law and authority? I had supposed you were an American."

Megan realized too late that she had been carried away, and simultaneously that she must not be carried away again. It was she and not he who had given way to a sense of antagonism.

"I am sorry," she said hastily. "I am afraid I was too rhetorical. Yes, I am an American."

He acknowledged her withdrawal with a nod, slight enough not to attach undue importance to it.

"I have never been to America," he said gently, "but I have lived in England for a time and in France and Germany. Are you also, like Doctor Strike, a missionary?"

"No. But I came out to be married to one of the doctors at Changsha, at Yale-in-China."

"Ah, yes. Well, I am glad you are not a missionary, even if you are to become one."

"Why?" said Megan. "Do you dislike them?"

"No," said the General. "Only I have found few agreeable friends among them."

"Doctor Strike however admires you greatly."

"I greatly admire Doctor Strike, though I must say I was rather relieved when he decided to leave my province. He was too much like an atom of radium locked in a desk drawer. Yes, I had been wondering all along if you were not with Doctor Strike or in some way connected with that orphanage. But what did you go with him for? I don't understand it. For the excitement perhaps?"

Megan did not answer and he shook his head, smiling as if he found her an impossible subject for analysis.

"When Doctor Strike asked me for the famous safe-conduct pass," he continued, "I didn't want to give it to him because I felt sure he would put too great a strain upon it. He found me, as perhaps he told you, in a Shanghai hotel dining with some friends, and he urged me at a time when I could not well refuse. You see, I was not supposed to be in the European sections of Shanghai. At the time you saw me I was going in under a false name as a prominent official of the Northern government, a man who, unknown to the authorities, was at that moment actually dead. When Doctor Strike found me I had completed the negotiation I came for, but it would still have been very unpleasant for me to have been obliged to explain my presence to the foreign authorities. Of course as soon as the Doctor began to urge me, I thought of the position I was in. But I am quite sure it never occurred to the Doctor to make use of it to get his pass. No, I am quite sure he never thought of it for a moment." The General stopped to smile at this further aspect of the comedy.

Megan looked at him intently. "Yes," she said, with an insistence on each word, "I am sure he was not only unwilling but even incapable of betraying you."

The General's smile became inquiring; he looked at her a moment, then let his gaze wander toward the ceiling as he did when he wished to withdraw his attention from the more immediate considerations. He grew deeply thoughtful and she had the satisfaction of seeing his urbanity appear to be invaded by a sudden, sharp uncertainty. But he dismissed that.

"When I spoke of the situation in which I could not very well refuse," he went on to explain, "I meant that Doctor Strike was in a fair way to spoil the gaiety of the party my friends were giving me. He is the sort of man who would infallibly respect one's grief but be incapable of respecting one's gaiety. That would have been regrettable. I wanted very much to get rid of him. I wrote him the pass on the back of a menu card. It was the only paper available except a bill from the hotel and I chose it because it had a design of Kuomintang flags at the top. Yes, my host is very Europeanized. He not only believes that menus are desirable as stimulating the appetite and perhaps falsifying the origins of certain dishes but he believes in the sacredness of a flag. And I too at that moment, perhaps under the influence of a beneficent champagne, believed that if my safe-conduct pass were to have any efficacy, it would be due to those flags!"

Megan did not answer. She could not decide whether he was trying to offend her or if, unable in this novel situation to achieve the proper balance and perhaps a little fearful lest she attempt to bully him, he was only making futile alternate gestures of courtesy and warning.

"My friends," he said, "knew I was leaving the city at a certain hour; so, because of the extreme merriment of the party, they themselves accompanied me to the station. When I got there I found you being handled very roughly by the crowd around the gate. A coolie was hitting you on the head with a carrying-pole. It must have been the coolie you said struck Doctor Strike a moment before. He was probably emboldened by his success in felling the Doctor. I had my guard extricate you. And then I really had no idea what to do with you. I have explained to you that for various reasons I had to leave without involving myself in explanations with the foreign authorities. I was already in Chinese territory, my train was waiting, so I brought you along. As soon as I can make suitable arrangements you shall return. In the meantime you must consider yourself my guest."

Megan thought for a moment before answering him. He had not said a single unreasonable word. Except for the anxiety for her parents, for which he was hardly responsible, she was glad to be here. She had no thought that she was in any personal danger; on the contrary it was she herself who was the disruptive element in the midst of a long-established plan. The prospect of troubling all this false security filled her with excitement and genuine pleasure, yet she was at the same time on the verge of anger. Surely she was not really disturbed by so trivial a thing as the nearness of a stridently alien flesh; perhaps it was the pressure and the will to dominate of an alien mind.

The General in his turn, she could feel it, was taking advantage of her abstraction to scrutinize her more closely. She threw her cigarette out the window and turned to him.

"I see I owe you a great deal," she said; "please forgive me for not being more gracious about it. The truth is I am still a bit bewildered."

"That is quite natural. It must be bewildering to you to wake up unexpectedly in China."

"By the way, there is something I would like to ask you to do for me that will put my mind very much at rest."

The General nodded.

"It is to send a telegram to Shanghai to my friends there so that they can let my parents and the man I came here to marry know I am safe."

"The parents and the bridegroom! But certainly I will send one at once. In all probability they believe you dead. Now there will be rejoicing, even though they will not be able to think so ill of us as they might have liked."

"I feel sure," said Megan stiffly, "that in this case they will be glad to be mistaken."

"No doubt at all. And I shall see about reassuring them at once." He leaned toward her, his cigarette case held open, but Megan shook her head.

"No more, thanks."

"As it turns out," said the General, tapping a cigarette on his thumb-nail and slowly lighting it, "as it turns out I shall not be able to arrange for your return immediately. An incident occurred at Nanking, at the same time I brought you here, which has aroused so much feeling, both among my people and among yours, that I do not yet know what will come of it."

"What sort of incident?"

"In capturing the city of Nanking the troops of General Chen Chien got a little out of hand. War, you know, does not bring out the best qualities of tolerance and self-control; that is one reason why we Chinese are so unfitted for it."

"But what was the incident?"

"A number of people were shot and some were killed, missionaries largely, Doctor Williams of the Nanking College, some ladies, the British Consul too, I believe."

"Shot by Chinese?"

"By troops, yes."

"But that is an outrage!" cried Megan, overwhelmed with anger. "We are not at war with you!"

"No? Well, at any rate your gunboats, in retaliation, fired on the unarmed, civilian population of Nanking, killing hundreds. But after all, why should you and I talk about it?"

"I don't believe they fired on the civilian population, or if they did, they must have been forced into it."

The General shrugged his shoulders.

"We will get nowhere by discussing this. It would only drag us both into the vulgarity of open anger. I will send you some Shanghai papers which have just come to me. You can read there all your own point of view."

But if the General was not already angry, he was agitated. His hand holding the cigarette shook nervously. This shaking hand made Megan realize how near she herself had come to losing control, perhaps irreparably. What about all the vast misery of China which had in no wit changed? What about the word of God that was to illumine the drowsy twilight of its spirit? Christianity had always spread to an inevitable accompaniment of bloodshed, its own and, it must be admitted, that of others. But the loss of life was not to be considered in the saving of a soul. Life, blood, flesh, were nothing; the spirit everything. Megan sat with clinched hands, and while for several moments neither she nor the General had said a word, she was as exhausted as though they had been engaged in a mortal struggle.

"Yes, you are right," she said. "We won't talk about that. I want as a matter of fact to see your point of view as far as I can. I believe I can do it better when you don't argue with me."

The General smiled suddenly and taking out his handkerchief wiped his forehead.

"Delightful," he murmured. "Do you know," he said, "for a moment you quite terrified me. There is something about the European eye, I can't explain the effect it has on me. It gets so--large." He returned his handkerchief carefully to its pocket. "But I am glad you are trying not to think too ill of us."

Megan's cheeks still burned and her voice was still a little husky.

"Oh, we don't really think ill of you. Certainly not in America. On the contrary we like to sentimentalize over your superiority to ourselves. Haven't you noticed that attitude in England too? Peace-loving exquisites, passionate over tea, philosophy and calligraphy, that is how we like to think of you."

The General seized with relief this diversion into a wider field.

"And aren't we that?"

"I know nothing about your actual tastes. But as to peace, the country never seems to have known it. And any one can see that your philosophy has never brought you good government, justice, or an equal distribution of happiness."

"Our poor philosophy! So you demand it give us good government, justice, and an equal distribution of happiness? But you seem to think it is a safe-conduct pass! Haven't you people rather a mania for drastic remedies? I have observed that you are very prone to attach yourself to one thing like religion, or democracy, or even proper sanitation, and believe that it will cure all. Our philosophy enables us to support life in the only way it can be supported, by an endless series of compromises; successful compromises, perfectly adjusted to our temperament. That is surely a great deal for a philosophy, don't you think so? It is even a great deal for a religion. But," he added, "you are right in supposing we are peace-loving. In the real China we have always been predominantly agriculturists. A farmer's life is bound down to his plot of earth. He doesn't need to fight like the herder for new pasture grounds, or the trader for new markets. So war is not the result of our deeper necessities and certainly not of our inclinations. We fight because the corruption of our officials forces us to. But even then we run as often as we fight, which proves, as Bertrand Russell says, that we are rational men, because what we fight for is not worth our death."

"It is arguable whether there are not some things worth dying for, even if you have failed to discover them." Megan tried also to speak lightly. "So I am right as to your being peace-loving. And as to tea, is it true you drink only that?"

She remembered then that Doctor Strike had said he had found the General very drunk, even the General had admitted his weakness, and was sorry she had spoken, but the General said pleasantly:

"In our period of greatest civilization we drank wine, and those who could afford it drank it to excess. Only savages and animals practise sobriety, continence and moderation. Yes, our greatest poet was drowned in an attempt to catch the moon in the river. I saw once in a private collection in England--so much of our art has gone abroad--a very charming painting of Yang Kwei Fei, who was a great beauty of the Tang dynasty. She is holding a wine-cup and the legend says, 'Yang Kwei Fei, drunk but still drinking.'"

"I wonder if you can be typical," said Megan. "What you say is very confusing."

"I don't want to tire you with discussions, when you are just up." The General got up and threw his cigarette out of the window. "But I do not see why I should be typical. Fortunately for our entertainment, men of the same race don't resemble each other, as ants resemble ants, or tigers tigers. Though it might prove more convenient in the matter of international relations if we did. Then we could all behave toward each other without compunction, in the simple brutality of the animal world."

He held out his hand to her and Megan shook it carefully as though she were handling porcelain.

"I will send word to Shanghai at once," he said. "And by the way, I don't yet know your name."

"My name is Megan Davis, Miss Davis. If you will send word to Mr. Jackson, of the China Inland Mission, and ask him to notify my family and friends I shall be very grateful."

"Will you please spell all that?" said the General, and he wrote it down in a little note-book he carried in one pocket. When he had closed it again he said very formally, in a high strange voice, as if he were making an official proclamation:

"There is at present only one female in my household. If you have no repugnance for her society she will be glad to visit you from time to time. I myself am very busy with the political situation in my province."

"Of course I have no repugnance," Megan exclaimed. "She has been very kind and I think she is charming."

"Then she will come again whenever you wish. She speaks English well."

He took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and smoothed his hair before putting on his cap. His gesture was eloquent of relief from a considerable strain. He gave her a slight salute and walked over to the door.

"Good morning," he said, clicking his heels together.

"Good morning," said Megan.

The orderly with the salmon-pink cord, who had been waiting just outside, opened the door for him and he went out.