“I have not,” the General replied. “I have been too busy with other parts of the campaign.”
“Then I am in time,” she said. She leaned forward a little more closely. “You know that I went to see the Ones Above,” she said in a low voice. “Did they speak of me to you?”
“I did not see the lady,” he said, “and with the Chairman I spoke only of military affairs.”
“The lady has appointed me to go as the one in charge of the young nurses,” Mayli said.
The General smiled. “The lady does what she likes,” he said. “But are you not young to be put in such a place?”
Mayli smiled a most mischievous smile. “I am young, but very strong,” she said. “I can walk for miles, I can endure heat and I can eat whatever there is to eat.”
“A good soldier,” he said. “Well, what else? Your work is not under my direct command, you know. You must report to another.”
He began to search through the papers and he found one and read out the name, “Pao Chen is your superior.”
She put the name into her mind securely. “Pao Chen,” she repeated. “But that is not why I come to you.”
He leaned back and looked at her, still smiling. “When will you tell me why you have come?” he asked. “Look at these papers on my desk. Each one must be made into an act. And how few days we have left! There has already been too much delay.”
“I will speak quickly,” she said. “It is a thing short and yet difficult for me to say. It is this — please tell no one that I am going.”
Now that she came to her request she found it impossible to speak Sheng’s name. She blushed brightly and winked her long lashed eyes as he looked at her.
“Why should your name be kept so secret?” he asked astonished.
She saw he had no knowledge of the reason, so she said bravely, “The young commander — the one you have newly promoted — of whom I spoke—”
“Ling Sheng,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “it is he — I do not wish him to know that I go.”
“Ah,” he said.
“He has some silly thoughts of me,” she went on, her cheeks burning again, “and — and — it is better if we do not meet — that is, we have a grave duty to do and I do not wish to — to—”
“You have no silly thoughts of him?” The General’s smile was teasing.
“None, none,” Mayli said quickly. “I must do my work well, and I do not want him thinking his thoughts. He has his work and I have mine and I do not want to know what he thinks. Moreover, if he finds I am going he will come and try to prevent me.”
“He can scarcely do that if the lady has told you to go,” the General said.
“You do not know him,” Mayli said with earnestness. “He thinks he is the one who can say what I shall do and what I shall not do.”
“In other words he loves you,” the General said with mild laughter.
“But I do not wish to be loved,” Mayli said hotly. “This is not the time for such things.”
The General shook with silent laughter for a moment. Then he wiped his eyes. “You shall have your own way,” he said. “I have a campaign to undertake and I agree with you that it is better for him to know nothing about you. If he is wounded, he may discover your presence. If he is not, there is little reason why he should ever know you are with us.”
“That is what I wish,” Mayli said. Now that she had what she wanted she would not stay one moment longer, knowing that nothing makes a man sorrier that he has done a good deed to a woman than to have her linger on after he has done it, and this especially when he doubts himself wise to have yielded to her.
So she rose and leaned on her two hands on the desk, and smiled down at him. “How good you are — how kind,” she said. “And I promise you I will do all my duty and if there is any need you ever have of me, call upon me.”
He nodded at her, and felt warmth stirring in his belly as though he had drunk a draught of sweet hot wine.
Now just at this moment a soldier came in to say that the commanders of the divisions were waiting outside as the General had ordered them to be at this hour.
“Ah, yes,” the General said. “I had forgotten — let them come in.”
But Mayli put her hand to her lips at this. “No,” she whispered. “Let me go out first.”
Ah, yes,” the General said again. “I forgot — yes, he is one of them.” So he said to the soldier. “Well, tell them to wait a moment.”
The soldier went out, and after a minute to allow him time, Mayli said good-by and her thanks again and she went out, too. She was afraid that Sheng might be somewhere to see her, and she drew the collar of her cape high and bent her head and hurried her steps. But she did not see him anywhere and so she thought herself safe.
Now so she might have been safe, if the soldier had not been a dirty fellow who loved to joke about women and men, and so he went back sniggering and told the three commanders that they must wait a while because the General had a visitor whom they must not see.
They looked at each other and did not answer out of respect for their superior, but when the soldier was gone Sheng said plainly, “I did not think that he was such a one.”
“He is not,” the second commander said. “The minds of inferior men are always ready to make such accursed talk, especially about those who rule them.”
Now the room in which they waited was a small room off the main court. A hallway passed between the court and the room, but there was a door into the hallway and this was open, and toward it the third one now stepped.
“I see a woman, nevertheless,” he said unwillingly.
They all stepped to the door then, and they all saw the tall slender woman wrapped in a cape for one quick second, too quick to catch any of her looks. But Sheng knew the moment that he saw her who it was. Many women wore such capes, but he knew this tall woman, and for proof it chanced that his eye fell on her hand holding the collar of her cape about her and he saw on it the green gleam of jade.
Who can tell the rush of terror and fear and anger that now swept up his body? Was this where she was all these days, here in this house? Had she gone nowhere but here? Was his own general his rival with her?
The soldier was back again before he could think beyond his fears. “The General invites you,” the man said.
There was no more time. Sheng was compelled to move forward with his fellows and he marched beside them into the room where the General was. There the General sat, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. They stood at attention side by side, and saluted and at that moment Sheng smelled in his nostrils the faint sweetness of perfume left upon the air.
… “The Big Soldier did not come,” Liu Ma told Mayli as she came into the gate again.
“Ah, good,” Mayli said carelessly. She felt happy and yet restless, and when she had taken off her cape and changed her robe to a softer one, she still felt restless. She walked in and out and then in and out again of the little court. If he came she would tell him nothing. They would play and quarrel and fend off their love, and she would tell him good-by when he went away and then let what happened happen. She was restless with secret laughter and gaiety, and she teased her little dog and played pranks on Liu Ma until that old woman lost her temper outright.
“You are not a child,” the old woman scolded her, “I swear I wish you were though, so that I could beat your bottom. Heaven send you a husband soon, and I shall not care who he is. I have a mind to hunt for that Big Soldier myself and tell him he can have you for nothing and I shall only be glad to have some peace.”
“You would have no peace,” Mayli laughed. “You would have to come along to take care of me, and you know how we quarrel, he and I.”