“I like to dine out,” Mr. MacVeagh put in; “it takes my mind off public affairs and is a real treat. I even like to make calls on certain people—this season they have been out of the question, we are all too hard pressed with work.”
“I get my rest in walking and driving,” Mr. Knox observed. “Whenever it is possible I run down to my farm at Valley Forge.”
As we were talking, President Taft walked in upon us, unannounced. He has a perfectly disarming personality, kind blue eyes and the golden smile of a child. As he shook hands with us, he looked a little piteously at Mr. MacVeagh for prompting. The royalties we have met learn their lessons better, and seem to know quite as much about you as you can know about them.
“Mr. Elliott had a very nice letter from you, Mr. President,” Mr. MacVeagh explained, “thanking him for the work he did at Messina and conferring upon him the medal of the Red Cross.”
The kind blue eyes, that had been so bewildered, softened as Mr. Taft said:
“Miss Mabel Boardman is the Red Cross—I am only the President. Every now and then she tells me what to do and I do it.”
The sweetness and lack of pose of him were enchanting. Many men would have let us suppose that he was the power behind the Red Cross, but he gave all the credit to a woman. Mr. MacVeagh then told him that, like La Fille de Mme. Argot, I was the daughter of my mother.
“I have had some correspondence with her about the Armenians,” said the President. “I was obliged to her for bringing their sad condition to my notice.”
“I have brought you a poem written by the old sibyl in her ninety-first year. It contains a message for you all.” I handed him the magazine containing the poem on the Capitol, with these lines underscored:
Let him who stands for service here
With deeply reverent soul draw near,
To lift the weight that most offends,
The need that other needs transcends.