The President nodded. "She is very lovely. I saw her at a distance, and I want to meet her. Now, Mr. Huntingdon, it's very painful for me to have to chide you for dereliction in office. But a man who will neglect those pictures for the—well, the coal fields of Alaska, should be dealt with severely."
"Hear! Hear!" cried the Secretary of State.
The President laughed. "And so I must ask you, Mr. Huntingdon, to bring Miss Allen to see me, after you have gone carefully over the pictures. Jokes aside, you know my keen interest in Indian ethnology?" Enoch nodded, and the President went on. "If this girl has the brains and breadth of vision I'm sure she must have to produce a series of photographs like those, I want to know her and do what I can to push her work. So neglect Mexico and Alaska for a little while, tomorrow, will you, Huntingdon?"
Enoch's laughter was a little grim, but with a quick leap of his heart, he answered. "A man can but obey the Commander in Chief, I suppose!"
As the door swung to behind him, the President said to the Secretary of
State, "Huntingdon is working too hard, I'm afraid. Does he ever play?"
"Horseback riding and golf. But he's a woman hater. At least, if not a hater, an avoider!"
"I like him," said the President. "I want him to play."
That evening Enoch went to see the pictures. There were perhaps a hundred of them, telling the story of the religion of the Navahos. Only one whom the Indians loved and trusted could have procured such intimate, such dramatic photographs. They were as unlike the usual posed portraits of Indian life as is a stage shower unlike an actual thunder storm. There was indeed a subtle passion and poignancy about the pictures that it seemed to Enoch as well as to the President, only a fine mind could have found and captured. He had made the rounds of the little room twice, threading his way abstractedly through the crowd, before he came upon Diana. She was in white, standing before one of the pictures, answering questions that were being put to her by a couple of reporters. She bowed to Enoch and he bowed in return, then stood so obviously waiting for the reporters to finish that they actually withdrew.
Enoch came up and held out his hand. "These are very fine, Miss Allen."
"I thought you were not coming to see them," said Diana. "It makes me very happy to have you here!"