The bitter tea of General Yen

A French non - commissioned officer and several Senegalese soldiers stood at the entrance and examined, bored but relentless, all the traffic going in and out. All afternoon, in spite of bad weather, there had been a straggling passage of motors, rickshaws, wheelbarrows, and Chinese men in long black skirts, holding large umbrellas, fastidiously picking their way among the puddles. Megan since her arrival in the house, while talking to the Jacksons and when they had gone, unpacking, directing the amah's pressing, was always conscious of the windows. In the dimness of the European house those gray windows opened strangely on to the Chinese road.