"If that is the worst of you—" Diana began quickly, then paused. "As father told me, it was a story of a boy's suffering and the final triumph of his mind and his body."
Enoch stared at Diana with astonishment in every line of his face.
Then he sighed. "He couldn't have told you all," he muttered.
"Yes, he did, all! And nothing, not even what the President said to-day, can mean as much to me as your asking me to be your friend."
Enoch continued to stare at the lovely, tender face opposite him.
Diana smiled. "Don't look so incredulous, Mr. Secretary! It's not polite. You are a very famous person. I am nobody. We are lunching together in a wonderful hotel. I don't even vaguely surmise the names of the things we are eating. Don't look at me doubtingly. Look complacent because you can give a lady so much joy."
Enoch laughed with a quick relief that made his cheeks burn. "And so you are nobody! Curious, then, that you should have impressed yourself on me so deeply even when you were a child!"
It was Diana's turn to laugh. "Oh, come, Mr. Secretary! Of course I don't recall it myself, but Dad has always said that you were bored to death at having a small girl taking the trail with you."
"Do you remember that your mule slipped on the home trail and that I saved your life?" demanded Enoch.
Diana shook her head. "I was too small and there were too many canyon trips and too many tourists. I wish—"
She did not finish her sentence, but Enoch said, with a thread of earnestness in his deep voice that made Diana look at him keenly, "I wish you did remember!"