The clock struck twelve the next day, when Abbott came to the Secretary's desk. Enoch was deep in a conference with the Attorney General.
"Miss Allen is here," he said softly.
"Give me five minutes!" exclaimed the Attorney General.
"I'm sorry." Enoch rose from his desk. "I'm very sorry, old fellow, but this is an appointment with the President. Can you come about three, if that suits Abbott's schedule?"
"Not till to-morrow, I'm afraid," said the Attorney General.
Enoch nodded. "It's just as well. I think I'll have some private advices from Mexico by then that may somewhat change our angle of attack. All right, Jonas! I'm coming. Ask Miss Allen to meet me at the carriage."
But he overtook Diana in the elevator. She wore the brown silk suit, and Enoch thought she looked a little flushed and a little more lovely than usual.
"I'm a marked person, Mr. Secretary," she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. "You'd scarcely believe how many total strangers have asked me to introduce them to you, since you walked up Pennsylvania Avenue with me."
"I'm glad you have an appreciative mind," returned Enoch. "I hope that you are circumspect also, and won't impose on me because of my condescension."
"I'll try not to," Diana answered meekly, as Enoch followed her into the carriage.
They smiled at each other, and Enoch went on, "Of course, I've been feeling rather proud of the opportunity to display myself before Washington with you. I've been called indifferent to women. I'm hoping now that the gossips will say, 'Aha! Huntingdon's a deep one! No wonder he's been indifferent to the average woman!'"
Diana eyed him calmly. "That doesn't sound at all like Washington Monument," she murmured.
"More like Charley Abbott, I suppose!" retorted Enoch.
"No," answered Diana thoughtfully, "hardly like Mr. Abbott's method. I would say that he belonged to a different school from you."
"Yes? What school does Abbott represent?"
"Well, he has a dash, an ease, that shows long and varied experience. Charley Abbott is a finished ladies' man. It almost discourages me when I contemplate the serried ranks of women that must have contributed to his perfect finesse."
"Discourages you?" queried Enoch.
Diana did not answer. "But," she went on, "while Charley is a graduate of the school of experience and you--"
She paused.
"Yes, and I--," pressed Enoch.
"I won't impose on your condescension by telling you," said Diana.
"Pshaw!" muttered the Secretary of the Interior.
Suddenly Diana laughed. Enoch, after a moment, laughed with her, and they entered the White House grounds still chuckling.
The President did not keep them waiting. "I may not be able to order my wife and daughter about," he said, as he shook hands with Enoch, "but I certainly have my official family well under control. Did you see the pictures, Huntingdon?"
"I saw and was conquered, Mr. President," replied Enoch.
"What would you say, Miss Allen, if I tell you that I had to force this fellow into going to see your wonderful pictures?" the President asked.
"It wouldn't surprise me," replied Diana, in an enigmatical voice that made both men smile.
"I see you understand our Secretary of the Interior," the President said complacently. "Sit down, children, and Miss Allen, talk to me. How long did it take you to make that collection of photographs?"
"I began that particular collection ten years ago. Those pictures have been sifted out of nearly two thousand prints."
"Did you take any other pictures during that period?" asked the President.
"Oh, yes! I was, I think, fourteen or fifteen when I first determined to give my life to Indian photography. I didn't at that time think of making a living out of it. I had a dream of making a photographic history of the spiritual life of some of the South-western tribes. It didn't occur to me that anything but a museum or possibly a library would care for such a collection. But to my surprise there was a ready market for really good prints of Indians and Indian subjects. So while I have kept always at work on my ultimate idea, I've made and sold many, many pictures of Indians on all sorts of themes."
Enoch looked from Diana's half eager, half abashed eyes, to the President's keen, hawk-like face, then back to Diana.
"What gave you the idea to begin with?" asked the President.
Diana looked thoughtfully out of the window. Both men watched her with interest. Enoch's rough hewn face, with its unalterably somber expression, was set in an almost painful concentration. The President's eyes were cool, yet eager.
"It is hard for me to put into words just what first led me into the work," said Diana slowly. "I was born in a log house on the rim of the Grand Canyon. My father was a canyon guide."
"Yes, Frank Allen, an old Yale man. I know him."
"Do you remember him?" cried Diana. "He'll be so delighted! He took you down Bright Angel years ago."
"Of course I remember him. Give him my regards when you write to him. And go on with your story."
"My mother was a California woman, a very good geologist. My nurse was a Navajo woman. Somehow, by the time I was into my teens, I was conscious of the great loss to the world in the disappearance of the spiritual side of Indian life. I knew the Canyon well by then and I knew the Indians well and the beauty of their ceremonies was even then more or less merged in my mind with the beauty of the Canyon. Their mysticism was the Canyon's mysticism. I tried to write it and I couldn't, and I tried to paint it, and I couldn't. And then one day my mother said to me, 'Diana, nobody can interpret Indian or Canyon philosophy. Take your camera and let the naked truth tell the story!'"
Diana paused. "I'm not clever at talking. I'm afraid I've given you no real idea of my purpose."
"One gets your purpose very clearly, when one recalls your Death and the Navajo, for instance, eh, Huntingdon?"
"Yes, Mr. President!"
"I suppose the two leading Indian ethnologists are Arkwind and Sherman, of the Smithsonian, are they not, Miss Allen?" asked the President.
"Oh, without doubt! And they have been very kind to me."
The President nodded. "They both tell me that your work is of extraordinary value. They tell me that you have actually photographed ceremonies so secret, so mystical, that they themselves had only heard vaguely of their existence. And not only, they say, have you photographed them, but you have produced works of art, pictures 'pregnant with celestial fire.'"
Diana's cheeks were a deep crimson. "Oh, I deserve so little credit, after all!" she exclaimed. "I was born in the midst of these things. And the Indians love me for my old nurse's sake! But human nature is weak and what you tell me makes me very happy, sir."
The men glanced at each other and smiled.
"Suppose, Miss Allen," said the President, "that you had the means to outfit an expedition. How long would it take you to complete the entire collection you have in mind?"
Diana's eyes widened. "Why, I could do nothing at all with an expedition! I simply wander about canyon and desert, sometimes with old nurse Na-che, sometimes alone. The Indians have always known me. I'm as much a part of their lives as their own daughters. I--I believe much of their inner hidden religion and so--oh, Mr. President, an expedition would be absurd, for me!"
"Well, then, without an expedition?" insisted the President.
Diana sighed. "You see, I'm not able to give all my time to the work. Mother died five years ago, and father is lonely and, while he thinks his little income is enough for both of us, it's enough only if I stay at home and play about the desert with my camera, cheaply as I do, and keep the house. It does not permit me to leave home. It seems to me, that working as I have in the past, it would take me at least ten years more to complete my work."
"The patience of the artist! It always astounds me!" exclaimed the President. "Miss Allen, I am not a rich man, but I have some wealthy friends. I have one friend in particular, a self-made man, of enormous wealth. The
interest he and I have in common is American history in all its aspects. It seems to me that you are doing a truly important work. I want you to let this friend of mine fund you so that you may give all your time to your photography."
"Oh, Mr. President, I don't need funds!" protested Diana. "There is no hurry. This is my life work. Let me take a life-time for it, if necessary."
"That is all very well, Miss Allen, but what if you die, before you have finished? No one could complete your work because no one has your peculiar combination of information and artistic ability. People like you, my dear, belong not to themselves, but to the country."
Enoch spoke suddenly. "Why not arrange the matter with the Indian Bureau, Mr. President?"
"Why not arrange it with the Circumlocution Office!" exclaimed the President. "I'm surprised at you, Huntingdon! You know what the budget and red tape of Washington does to a temperament like Miss Allen's. On the other hand, here is my friend, who would give her absolutely free rein and take an intense pride in providing the money."
Diana laughed. "You speak, sir, as if I needed some vast fund. It costs a dollar a day in the desert to keep a horse and another dollar to keep a man. Camera plates and clothing--why a hundred dollars a month would be luxury! And I don't need help, truly I don't! The mere fact of your interest is help enough for me."
"A hundred dollars a month for your expenses," said the President, making a memorandum in his notebook, "and what is your time worth?"
"My time? You mean what would I charge somebody for doing this work? Why, Mr. President, this is not a job! It's an avocation! I wouldn't take money for it. It's a labor of love."
The chief executive suddenly rose and Diana, rising too, was surprised at the look that suddenly burned in the hawk-like eyes.
"You are an unusual woman, Miss Allen! Your angle on life is one seldom found in Washington." He took a restless turn up and down the room, glanced at Enoch, who stood beside the desk, utterly absorbed in contemplation of Diana's protesting eyes, then said, "This friend of mine is a disappointed man. He had believed that in amassing a great fortune he would find satisfaction. He has found that money of itself is dust and ashes and it is too late for him to take up a new work. Miss Allen, I too am a disappointed man. I had believed that the President of a great nation was a full man, a contented man. I find myself an automaton, whirled about by the selfish desires of a politically stupid and indifferent constituency. One of the few consolations I find in my high office is that once in a while I come upon some one who is contributing something permanent to this nation's real advancement, and I am able to help that person. Miss Allen, will you not share your great good fortune with my friend and me?"
"Gladly!" exclaimed Diana quickly. Then she added, with a little laugh, "I think I understand now, why you are President of the United States!"
Enoch and the President joined in the laugh, and Diana was still smiling when they descended the steps to the waiting carriage. But the smile faded with a sudden thought.
"The President mustn't think I will take more than expense money!" she exclaimed.
Enoch laughed again as he replied, "I don't think that need bother you, Miss Allen. I imagine a yearly sum will be placed at your disposal. You will use what you wish."
Diana shook her head uneasily. "I don't more than half like the idea. But the President made it very difficult to refuse."
Enoch nodded. The carriage stopped before the Willard Hotel. "Miss Allen, will you lunch with me?" he asked.
Diana hesitated. "I'll be late getting back to the office," she said.
"I'll ask Watkins not to dock you," said Enoch soberly.
"Docking my salary," touching Enoch's proffered hand lightly as she sprang to the curb, "would be almost like taking something from nothing. I've never lunched in the Willard, Mr. Secretary."
"The Johnstown lunch still holds sway, I suppose!" said Enoch, following Diana down the stairs to Peacock Row.
They were a rather remarkable pair together. At least the occupants of the Row evidently felt so, for there was a breathless craning of necks and a hush in conversations as they passed, Diana, with her heart-searching beauty, Enoch with his great height and his splendid, rugged head. The head waiter did not actually embrace Enoch in welcoming him, but he managed to convey to the dining-room that here was a personal and private god of his own on whom the public had the privilege of gazing only through his generosity. Finally he had them seated to his satisfaction in the quietest and most conspicuous corner of the room.
"Now, my dear Mr. Secretary, what may we give you?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.
Enoch glanced askance at Diana, who shook her head. "This is entirely out of my experience, Mr. Secretary," she said.
"Gustav," said Enoch, "it's not yet one o'clock. We must leave here at five minutes before two. Something very simple, Gustav." He checked several items on the card and gave it to the head waiter with a smile.
Gustav smiled too. "Yes, Mr. Secretary!" he exclaimed, and disappeared.
"And that's settled," said Enoch, "and we can forget it. Miss Allen, when shall you go back to the Canyon?"
"Why," answered Diana, looking a little startled, "not till I've finished the work for Mr. Watkins, and that will take six months, at least."
"I think the President's idea will be that you must get to your own work, at once. Some one else can carry on Watkins' researches."
"I ought to do some studying in the Congressional library," protested Diana. "Don't you think Washington can endure me a few months longer, Mr. Secretary?"
"Endure you!" Enoch's voice broke a little, and he gave Diana a glance in which he could not quite conceal the anguish.
A sudden silence fell between the two that was broken by the waiter's appearance with the first course. Then Diana said, casually:
"My father is going to be very happy when I write him about this. Do you remember him at all clearly, Mr. Secretary?"
"Yes," replied Enoch. Then with a quick, direct look, he asked, "Did your father, ever give you the details of his experience with me in the Canyon?"
Diana's voice was low but very steady as she replied, "Yes, Mr. Secretary. He told me long ago, when you made your famous Boyhood on the Rack speech in Congress. It was the first word he had heard of you in all the years and he was deeply moved."
"I'm glad he told you," said Enoch. "I'm glad, because I'd like to ask you to be my friend, and I would want the sort of friend you would make to know the worst as well as the best about me."
"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 threa
d of earnestness in his deep voice that made Diana look at him keenly, "I wish you did remember!"
There was a moment's silence, then Enoch went on, "Shall you carry on your work with the Indians alone as you always have done? I believe I can quite understand your father's uneasiness."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Diana, glad of an opportunity to redirect the conversation. "Just as I always have done. I shall have no trouble unless I get soft, living at the Johnstown Lunch! Then I may have to waste time till I get fit again. Have you ever lived on the trail, excepting on your trip to the Grand Canyon, Mr. Secretary?"
"Yes, in Canada and Maine, while I was in college. I used to tutor rich boys, and they had glorious summers, lucky kids! But since getting into national politics, I've had no time for real play."
"Some day," said Diana, "you ought to get up an outfit and go down the Colorado from the Green River to the Needles. That's a real adventure! Only a few men have done it since the Powell expeditions."
Enoch's eyes brightened. "I know! Some day, perhaps I shall, if Jonas will let me! How long do you suppose such a trip would take?"
Diana plunged into a description of a recent expedition down the canyons of the Colorado, and she managed to keep the remainder of the luncheon conversation on this topic. But as far as Enoch was concerned, Diana's effort was merely a conversational detour. The luncheon finished and the Gulf of California safely reached, he said as he handed Diana into the carriage:
"I've never had a friendship with a woman before," he said. "What do I do next?"
Diana sighed, while her lips curled at the corners. "Well, Mr. Secretary, I think the next move is to think the matter over for a few days, quietly and alone."
"Do you?" Enoch smiled enigmatically. "I don't know that it's safe for me to rely on your experience after all!" But he said no more.
Enoch spent the evening in his living-room with Señor Juan Cadiz and a small, lean, brown man in an ill-fitting black suit. The latter did not speak English, and Señor Cadiz acted as interpreter. The stranger was uneasy and suspicious, until the very last of the evening. Then, after a long half hour spent in silent scowling while he stared at Enoch and listened to the Secretary's replies to Cadiz's eager questions, he suddenly burst into a passionate torrent of Spanish. A look of great relief came to Cadiz's face, as he said to Enoch:
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