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!”

“Does it?” asked Enoch quickly.  “Why?”

“Because—­” here Diana hesitated and looked from Enoch’s stern lips to his blue eyes.

“Yes, go on, do!” urged Enoch.  “For heaven’s, sake, treat me as if I were a human being and not—­”

It was his turn to hesitate.

“Not the Washington Monument?” suggested Diana.

Enoch laughed.  “Am I as bad as that?” he asked.

Diana nodded.  “Very nearly!  Nevertheless, for some reason I don’t understand, I’ve had the feeling that you would like the pictures and get what I was driving at, better than any one.”

“Thank you,” said Enoch slowly.  “I do like them.  So much so that I wish that I might own them, instead of the Indian Bureau.  The President, to-day, told me the Indian Bureau ought to buy them.  And also, he asked me to bring you to see him to-morrow.”

A sudden flush made roses in Diana’s beautifully modeled cheeks.

“Did he!  Mr. Huntingdon, how am I ever going to thank you?”

“I deserve no thanks at all.  It was entirely the President’s own idea.  In fact, I had not intended to come to your exhibition.”

“No?  Why not?  Do you dislike me so much as that?  And, after all, Mr. Secretary, if the pictures are interesting, the fact that a woman took them should not prejudice you against them.”

“Abbott’s been giving me a bad reputation, I see,” said Enoch.  “I’ll have to get Jonas to tell you what a really gentle and affectionate and er—­mild, person I am.  I’ve a notion to reduce Abbott’s salary.”