"He asked me to wait a minute—the Private Secretary did. So I 'done it' again. After a while another man came and spoke to me, a gloomy man with a face like a clergyman who's got a crime on his soul, and he took me into the Presence." She was only half laughing. "The Presence and I said, 'How do you do.' I was almost too excited to look at him properly, now that I'd got him. But, O Gavan, he is, he really is!"
"H'm," replied Gavan.
"Wait till you see! He asked me why I'd come. Melancholy man still hung about. 'I should like to speak to you alone,' I said. Do you think he would? No. As much a 'fraid-cat as any king. But he looked at the melancholy man, and melancholy man went and looked out of the window. It was really as good as having him out of the room if I lowered my voice. Then I told him. I gave him Julian's Manifesto and the rest. Yes, I had them all in the green suit-case." She laughed triumphantly.
"Well, I wouldn't advise you to carry such merchandise again."
"I sha'n't," she agreed, "not in any such way as that. Babyish, I call it. But it was all right this time. I sat and watched him while he read Julian's Manifesto. He read it twice. It took hold of him. I could see that. Then I found him looking at me through his glasses.
"'What do your friends want me to do?'
"'To save civilization,' I said."
Napier could see her "doing Julian" for the President.
"I was awfully excited, but I remembered some more. He listened. He listens well. He makes you do your best. I felt encouraged. I made a case. Then I told him—oh, you won't like it, but I told him that Julian and the rest had far more backing in England than the newspapers gave the smallest inkling of. I told about the kind of men who were opposing the loss of liberty in the fight for liberty.
"'It is a menace before every country,' he said, in a discontented sort of way. He seemed not to want to think about it. I could see he was tired of considering me as a messenger any longer. I felt in the queerest way my best strength, my value, all going when I found him beginning to look at me as just a girl. He asked me questions that hadn't a thing to do with the great business. They were kind questions; oh, yes, kind, and as if he were really interested. He gave me a feeling, too, that he'd make everything all right. He made me feel very small and insignificant myself, but mighty proud of America."