“Now, just what did you do to kill time in the desert, Huntingdon?” asked Mr. Johns-Eaton, the British Ambassador.  “Why didn’t you go where there was some real sport?”

“Oh, I found sport of a sort!” returned Enoch solemnly.

Johns-Eaton gave Enoch a keen look.  “I’ll wager you did!” he exclaimed.  “Any hunting?”

“Some small game and a great deal of boating!”

“Boating!  Now you are spoofing me!  Listen, Mr. Fowler, here’s a man who says he was boating in the desert!”

Fowler and Enoch bowed and, after a moment’s more general conversation, they drew aside.

“About this Mexican trouble, Huntingdon,” said Fowler slowly.  “I said nothing as to your speaking trip, until your return, for various reasons.  But I want to tell you now, that I considered it an intrusion upon my prerogatives.”

“Have you told the President so?” asked Enoch.

“The President did not make the tour,” replied Fowler.

“Just why,” Enoch sipped his cup of tea calmly, “did you choose this occasion to tell me of your resentment?”

“Because,” replied Fowler, in a voice tense with repressed anger, “it is my express purpose never to set foot in your office again, nor to permit you to appear in mine.  When we are forced to meet, we will meet on neutral ground.”

“Well,” said Enoch mildly, “that’s perfectly agreeable to me.  But, excepting on cabinet days, why meet at all?”

“You are agreed that it shall be war between us, then?” demanded Fowler eagerly.

“Oh, quite so!  Only not exactly the kind of war you think it will be, Mr. Secretary!” said Enoch, and he walked calmly back to the tea table for his second cup.

He stayed for some time longer, chatting with different people, taking his leave after the Secretary of State had driven away.  Then he went home, thoughtfully, to prepare for the President’s dinner.

The chief executive was a remarkable host, tactful, resourceful, and witty.  The dinner was devoted entirely at first to Juan Cadiz and his wonderful stories of Aztec gods and of bullfighting.  Gradually, however, Cadiz turned to modern conditions in Mexico, and Mr. Johns-Eaton, with sudden fire, spoke of England’s feeling about the chaos that reigned beyond the Texan border lines.  Monsieur Foret did not fully agree with the Englishman’s general attitude, but when Cadiz quoted from one of Enoch’s speeches, the ambassadors united in praise of the sanity of Enoch’s arguments.  The President did not commit himself in any way.  But when he said good night to Enoch, he added in the hearing of the others: 

“Thank you, old man!  I wish I had a hundred like you!”

Enoch walked home through a light snow that was falling.  And although his mind grappled during the entire walk with the new problem at hand, he was conscious every moment of the fact that a week before he had tramped through falling snow with Diana always within hand touch.