I say that we met, but even in the most formal construction, that implies a loose familiarity which was entirely absent. We were in the same room. We saw one another. He focused upon me, and I upon him—and yet there was no discourse between us. He sat and I sat and he said nothing, so nor did I. Physically he was quite small, quite old, and yet here was the man who had defied Mussolini, who shamed the League of Nations and reconquered Ethiopia. Here was the man who ruled my country, and who held my life unmentioned in his hand.