's secretary was extremely courteous, and I was
not kept waiting. Ushered into Mr. Harding's fine circular room we shook
hands and sat down. A large black and tan Airedale terrier sniffed round
my skirts, and was ordered to sit in a chair by his master. President
Harding has a large bold head with well-cut features and an honest,
fearless address. He is tall, perfectly simple, and extraordinarily easy
and pleasant to talk to. He told me he also had lectured and gave me an
account of how lecturing had first started in America. There was a sort
of club or society which began round Lake Chautauqua and spread all over
the country. It was the only way that either pleasure or information
could reach distant and dreary little towns inhabited by thousands of
men and women who had neither the fortune or opportunity to meet famous
people. While he was telling me this I looked at the big writing table
in front of him. I noticed a faded photograph of an extremely pretty,
refined, middle-aged woman, and a framed engraving of George
Washington; on the top of a book case I observed an interesting print of
Abraham Lincoln. A fire in an open grate and large windows looking out
upon a garden with trees completed the room.

Our talk was interrupted by a secretary asking the President to speak on
the telephone, and he left me after a courteous apology.

On his return he found me looking at the photograph on his table, and
informed me that it was his mother. We spoke of Arthur Balfour and I
told him how pleased my husband and all of us in England were that he
had been able to go to Washington; that his quick mind, fine
intellectual manners, and lack of insularity gave him an unrivalled
understanding. The President responded with genuine warmth.

"I am very glad," he said, "that he attended our Conference. As you are
aware, Mrs. Asquith, he was known and liked here before the Conference,
and I can only say that he has added two hundred per cent to his former
popularity by the patience, tact, straightforwardness and ability he
showed throughout our proceedings."

He talked to me about the political situation in England, and asked when
I thought there would be a general election. I told him that the
Coalition Liberals were the ambitious, paying guests in a Conservative
Palace (or words to that effect); that in their recent attempt to force
a general election they had tried to purchase the Palace, but that to
their surprise and annoyance Sir