Yet with Page this was a labour of love.

All through his Ambassadorship he seemed hardly contented unless he had a pen in his hand.

As his secretaries would glance into his room, there they would see the Ambassador bending over his desk-writing, writing, eternally writing; sometimes he would call them in, and read what he had written, never hesitating to tear up the paper if their unfavourable criticisms seemed to him well taken.

The Ambassador kept a desk also in his bedroom, and here his most important correspondence was attended to.
Page's all-night self-communings before his wood fire have already been described, and he had another nocturnal occupation that was similarly absorbing.

Many a night, after returning late from his office or from dinner, he would put on his dressing gown, sit at his bedroom desk, and start pouring forth his inmost thoughts in letters to the President, Colonel House, or some other correspondent.