Chapter II: Part 2

I entered six weeks late but through the out-of-school-hours’ tutoring of my dear teacher and friend, to whom I will give the name of Miss Helen Anderson, I was enabled to catch up with the class very quickly. I studied hard. The Carter family was an intellectual one and Mr. Carter early began to dictate to me in the evenings, which was a great help. I received A’s in everything when the spring came and I was graduated.

In early spring, in April I believe, there was a request made to the Y. W. C. A. Employment Bureau for a stenographer for one whom I shall call Mrs. Emma Laird Phelps, publicity manager for Ignacy Paderewski, the famous pianist, and I went to be interviewed. I had several hours in the afternoons which I knew I could devote to this work and in that way make some extra expense money. Mrs. Phelps hired me after giving me some trial dictation, and I was launched upon my first stenographic position! During this employment I had occasion to do some special work with Mme. Paderewski and in this connection I met her famous husband.

Inasmuch as I had, when in high school, not been allowed much freedom where boys were concerned, I knew comparatively little about them. I had had my ideal American in my heart for years and all others paled into insignificance beside him. True, I had endeavored to weave romance several times into friendships with boys I had known in Marion, after I became almost seventeen years of age and was a junior in high school, when mother permitted a few “dates”--few and far between. But somehow these fellows, as well as those I met after I left Marion--in Cleveland and in Chicago--all seemed to have things “wrong with them.”

However, I was beginning to receive attentions from men whom I would meet even casually, and the fact that I was able to hold a secretarial position, and had been the only one in my class at Ballard to attempt such a thing before graduation, strengthened my faith in myself and tended to dignify me in my own estimation.

_11_

When spring came, and graduation day was drawing near, I decided I might now safely appeal to Warren Harding to help me to a position in the business world. I felt sure I could do myself credit and he would not have to be ashamed to recommend me for a position. I could, of course, have depended upon many other sources for situations, and in fact Mrs. Phelps kindly intimated that the Paderewskis might wish to take me to California with them, Mme. Paderewski having evinced a certain fondness for me. But I had other plans. Mr. Harding’s words to my mother back in Marion in 1914, “Maybe I can do something sometime for Nan,” recurred to me again and again. So one afternoon I stayed at school and wrote, after many revisions, and after destroying dozens of sheets of perfectly good Y. W. C. A. paper, and without saying a word to a soul, the following letter, a carbon copy of which I retained:

New York City
May 7, 1917

HON. WARREN G. HARDING
UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, D. C.

MY DEAR MR. HARDING:

I wonder if you will remember me; my father was Dr. Britton, of Marion, Ohio.

I have been away from Marion for about two years, and, up until last November, have been working. But it was work which promised no future.

Through the kindness of one of my father’s Kenyon classmates, Mr. Grover Carter, of this city, I have been enabled to take up a secretarial course, which course I shall finish in less than three weeks.

I have been reading of the imperative demand for stenographers and typists throughout the country, and the apparent scarcity, and it has occurred to me that you are in a position to help me along this line if there is an opening.

My experience is limited; I have done some work for Mr. Carter this winter; I have also been doing publicity work in the afternoons while going to school; the latter has been in connection with Madame Paderewski’s Polish Refugee work. Now that I am about to look for an all-day position I do so want to get into something which will afford me prospects of advancement.

Any suggestions or help you might give me would be greatly appreciated, I assure you, and it would please me so to hear from you.

Sincerely,
NAN BRITTON

Three days later, toward evening, when I came home from school, I spied a large envelope on the hall table. It was addressed to me in a man’s handwriting and bore the United States Senate return. I tore it open. At first my eyes swept the pages unseeingly, noting only the signature, “W. G. Harding.”

Mrs. Carter was in the living-room on that floor and I joined her there. She was an extremely conventional woman and I knew she would not understand or sympathize if I were to confess my intense admiration for a married man. So, with a supreme effort at nonchalance, I told her that I had some days before written to Senator Harding inquiring about a position, and that this was his reply. With forced calm I read aloud to her his letter to me.

The opening sentence was an assurance that he did indeed remember me. He added, “... you may be sure of that, and I remember you most agreeably, too.” Compared with the warmth of these first sentences the following cordially expressed desire to be of assistance in furthering my ambition to become a secretary held only secondary interest for me.

He said frankly that if he had a position open in his own office he would “gladly tender it to me.” The next best thing he said, would be to help me to a government position provided I were secretarially equipped for it. To this end he inquired specifically what I had been trained to do. He suggested that I accompany my next letter with a note of recommendation, parenthetically emphasizing that this note was not for his own satisfaction but for that of the department chief. After this was in his hands he would “go personally to the war or navy department and urge my appointment.” He thought that “the fact that my esteemed father had belonged to the party now in power” would help.

He mentioned the maximum departmental salary of $100 per month, but warned me that I would probably have to be satisfied with an initial salary of $60. Such positions as were available might last only during the period of the war, he said, and added, “which we all hope will not be long--however, it may be very long.”

The latter paragraphs thrilled me. He wrote that there was “every probability” of his being in New York the following week! If he could reach me by phone or “becomingly look me up,” he would do so, and “take pleasure in doing it.”

The whole tone of the letter was one of utmost cordiality. I could scarcely refrain from uttering exclamations of delight. I took my things and went upstairs to my room where I could reread the letter alone.

My bedroom on the third floor of the Carter home was a joy to me. The house itself stood almost in the shadow of Queensboro Bridge, which spans the North River at 59th Street. My windows faced the southeast and afforded a gorgeous view of the river. On a clear evening the lights of the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges looked like arches of stars hung low and twinkling against the sky.

Outside my windows trees were freshly green. Sparrows perched there and chirped joyously. For weeks children had been playing out-of-doors, mingling their cries with a hundred other street noises. And, from the background of these sounds, arose momently the varied shrilling of the river-boat whistles....

It all fascinated me. It was so different from any atmosphere I had ever known. At first these very things had made me homesick, but I was growing now to love New York! I liked to watch the barges glide smoothly and with scarce perceptible progress up or down the river.... I could even see from my bed in the morning the sparkling water surface dancing in the sun!...

Now I closed my door and seated myself on the sill of an open window.... All I had dared to hope for from Mr. Harding was a possible letter of introduction from him to someone, either in Washington or New York, to whom I might apply direct for a position.... But he himself seemed genuinely interested in helping me!... And was coming over to New York, and would see me!... Warren Gamaliel Harding!

As the evening deepened, and even as I crept in between cool white sheets that night, the impression grew upon me that under the cordial phraseology of his letter there was more than the mere desire to be of assistance to me. It was almost a sweet ingratiation.... “You see I do remember you ...” was his concluding sentence....

Well indeed had I perceived this hidden warmth! When, upon his visit, I quoted to him those lines which had moved me to feel an underlying sweetness beyond the evident friendliness, he smiled and nodded and confessed to an overwhelming desire to _see_ me after these years. _To see me_, he said, had been the sole motive for his trip to New York at that particular time!

And so an inexpressible happiness reigned in my heart, even though my impressions had not yet been grounded in fact by his assurances. Therefore I did not allow secret delight to vent itself in written words, but on May 11th wrote the following formal letter:

MY DEAR MR. HARDING:

It was good to know that you remembered me; and I appreciated your kind interest and prompt response.

As to my qualifications: I will say frankly that I have had little practical experience. As I said in my recent letter, my work this winter has been, in a degree, handicapped by the fact that it has been carried on while I have been going to school; therefore, I could not give it my entire attention. But certainly the little I have done has been wonderfully helpful, and has given me, at least, a start.

I am hoping that you will be in New York next week and that I can talk with you; I am inclined to believe that an hour’s talk would be much more satisfactory. There is so much I want to tell you; and I am sure that I could give you a better idea of my ability--or rather the extent of my ability, for it is limited--and you could judge for yourself as to the sort of position I could competently fill.

I am almost certain that I will be able to secure a good recommendation--both from Mr. Carter and Mrs. Phelps; if I do not get to talk with you I shall send them to you. This work has been in the stenographic line; this is really the work I want to follow.

If you call Stuyvesant 1900, the telephone number here at school, you would find me here from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon. In case you are able to see me for an hour it would please me immensely to make an appointment--provided it does not interfere with your plans.

Sincerely,
NAN BRITTON

_12_

I did not comply with Mr. Harding’s request for a letter of recommendation, not immediately securing it and not wishing to hold up my reply to him. I really felt I might likely be able to secure it and send it to him in advance of his answer to my letter of the 11th.

But May the 15th brought, to my surprise, a reply to my second letter sent the 11th. This letter too was written in longhand and was somewhat longer than the first one. In the corner of the stationery this time were the words, “Senate Chamber.”

If the first letter contained what I chose to regard as statements of rather more than conventional import, the second letter only served to confirm my belief.

He wrote that he had every confidence I would succeed--“... an ambitious young woman of your character and talents must succeed.” He spoke of having to break down the civil service bars to secure a place for me, adding, “I must ask it as a very personal favor, with the advantage of your good father having been a loyal supporter of the party in power.” However, he immediately assured me that he did not hesitate “to apply the purely personal appeal” and was glad to do it for me. He merely wished to be satisfied on one point--could I take dictation?

“You write a fine letter, your intelligence is of the high Britton standard.... I will have no doubt you will make good from the very start.”

It pleased me immensely to read, “I like your spirit and determination. It is like I have always imagined you to be.” Like he had _always imagined me to be_. Then he _had_ thought about me! Even speculated as to what I was like! “... I shall rejoice to note your success,” he wrote.

“I knew you had gone out to contest with the world and win your way, but I had no detailed knowledge....” Why, there was the implication that he had wondered, had perhaps even wanted detailed knowledge and of course hadn’t dared to betray his interest! Wonderful that he had thought about me!

He expected to be in New York within the next ten days and, he said, might definitely advise me in advance of his coming, and again he assured me, “It will be a pleasure to look you up.”

I liked the last line of his letter. “... always know of ... my very genuine personal interest in your good fortune.”

A skylark amid the clouds could not have been happier than I during the intervening days between my receipt of this letter and the arrival of its author. I would often speak sharply to myself when occasionally I touched earth long enough to realize the source of my joy and light-heartedness, “Don’t make a perfect fool of yourself, now, Nan. He hasn’t said anything which actually _means_ much ... and naturally he would take a fatherly interest in _any_ girl who might seek help from him....” But my spirits would not be downed! I talked to the birds. I arose earlier than usual to stand and gaze out of my window and dream. I examined my face carefully in the mirror. I planned exactly what I should wear. My Chicago benefactor had recently sent me $50 with which I had purchased a new gray tailored suit, and I would wear a dark blue sailor hat, the crown covered with grey veiling.

_13_

Before I had an opportunity to get another letter to _him_, Mr. Harding came over to New York. He telephoned me at school and made an appointment for me to meet him at the Manhattan Hotel, at Madison Avenue and 42nd Street. What a sweet shock to hear his voice!...

He was standing on the steps of the hotel when I reached there.

It must be remembered that I was but sixteen years of age when I had last seen Mr. Harding (the time I called at his house to congratulate him upon his election to the Senate) and, although I looked very young when I met him at the Manhattan Hotel, still I had had the advantage of the intervening two years, and the added advantage of having lived with the Carters from whom I had learned a great deal, and I am sure Mr. Harding’s agreeable surprise was genuine. Certainly he could not have been more cordial.

He invited me to come back to the reception room near 43rd Street. It was about 10:30 in the morning. We sat down upon a settee and it was not difficult for me to talk to him for he invited confidence. We became immediately reminiscent of my childhood and my adoration of him, and he seemed immensely pleased that I still retained such feelings. I could not help being perfectly frank.

Some kind of convention in New York at that time had made hotel accommodations very scarce, and Mr. Harding confessed that he was obliged to take the one room available in the Manhattan Hotel--the bridal chamber! He asked me to come up there with him so that we might continue our conversation without interruptions or annoyances.

The bridal chamber of the Manhattan Hotel was, to me, a very lovely room, and, in view of the fact that we had scarcely closed the door behind us when we shared our first kiss, it seemed sweetly appropriate. The bed, which we did not disturb, stood upon a dais, and the furnishings were in keeping with the general refinement of atmosphere. I shall never, never forget how Mr. Harding kept saying, after each kiss, “God!... God, Nan!” in high diminuendo, nor how he pleaded in tense voice, “Oh, dearie, tell me it isn’t hateful to you to have me kiss you!” And as I kissed him back I thought that he surpassed even my gladdest dreams of him.

Between kisses we found time to discuss my immediate need for a position and I found Mr. Harding less inclined to recommend me in Washington. In fact, he frankly confessed to me, he preferred to have me in New York where he could come over to see me and where he would feel more at liberty to be with me. There were no intimacies in that bridal chamber beyond our very ardent kisses, and, Mr. Harding, having been acquainted with my plans for going to Chicago after graduation to visit my sister, tucked $30 in my brand new silk stocking and was “sorry he had no more that time to give me.” Inasmuch as I received my carfare and small spending money from Mrs. Carter in amounts of $1.00, $.75, $1.25 or whatever change she happened to have on hand, to have $30 all at one time to “spend as I chose” seemed to me almost too good to be true! I had always been very grateful to the Carters for the way in which they took me into their home as one of them, but of course I would not have been my natural self had I not thought wistfully over Mr. Harding’s statement to me, “Why didn’t you ask _me_ to send you to school, Nan?” and his emphatic “You bet!” after I had inquired with wide eyes, “Oh, would you have done that?”

The first letter I received from Senator Harding I had shown to Mrs. Emma Laird Phelps with whom I was working in the Paderewski connection, and she read it with what I thought seemed avidity.

“A typical letter, my dear,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Typical of what?” I inquired.

“Why, that man has an object--can’t you see that?” she said easily.

“What kind of object do you mean?” I queried wonderingly.

Her explanation must have been very vague for I can’t remember it at all, but I suppose the affectional things that actually did transpire upon our first visit together were things which she would have said proved such ‘object’ on Mr. Harding’s part. But they were all too spontaneous, too sincere to have been premeditated.

Mrs. Phelps afterward asked me one time to give her a letter that she might use to gain a conference with Mr. Harding and I am sure, while I never gave her such a letter, that she changed her mind completely about Mr. Harding’s possible purposes toward me so graciously did she voice her admiration of him to me many times.

Upon this first visit, Mr. Harding and I had luncheon at the Manhattan Hotel, in the dining-room on the 43rd Street side. Then we took a taxi uptown to see Mrs. Phelps--to her apartment on 116th Street.

The entrance hall to Mrs. Phelps’ apartment was dimly lighted, and when we emerged into the living-room which is on 116th Street Mr. Harding turned to Mrs. Phelps. Except for their acknowledgments of introductions nothing had been said by any of us, and now Mr. Harding remarked pleasantly, “Well, Mrs. Phelps, we people with big noses always seem to get along, don’t we?” I had not been long enough in New York and was still too unsuspecting to realize the significance of that remark, though I am confident Mr. Harding meant it all good-naturedly, and I am not at all sure even now that Mrs. Phelps is a Jewess. Within the past year and a half I have been in Mrs. Phelps’ apartment and she asked me if I remembered when President Harding, then Senator, had sat in “that chair,” indicating an easy rocker.

From Mrs. Phelps Mr. Harding obtained the information that I was rather more than a good stenographer.

On the way back downtown in the taxi to the Y. W. C. A. where Mr. Harding next talked with Miss Anderson about my school work, he put his arm around me.

“Nan,” he queried kindly, “just how fast do you think you could take dictation?”

“Oh, I don’t know, not so very fast,” I answered frankly.

“Well, look here, I’ll dictate a letter to you and you tell me whether you ‘get’ all of it.” The “letter” as it was dictated verbatim I do not recall, but the trend of it is easy rememberable:

“My darling Nan: I love you more than the world, and I want you to belong to me. Could you belong to me, dearie? I want you ... and I need you so....”

I remember the letter did not run into length because I silenced him with the kisses he pleaded for. He would tremble so just to sit close to me, and I adored every evidence of his enthusiasm.

“Do people address you as ‘Judge’ or ‘Senator’?” asked Miss Anderson after I had presented Mr. Harding to her.

“No, I have never been a judge,” he answered, “I guess I’m just plain Mr. Harding.” He smiled. Miss Anderson suggested that we sit in one of the little waiting-rooms.

It will be remembered that this visit was in late May of 1917 and our whole United States was full of “the war.” It was entirely logical that the general trend of conversation should bear upon the various aspects of the war. But how it drifted into a discussion of babies I do not recall. Mr. Harding vouchsafed the information he had recently acquired in Washington, that the Germans were actually attempting to create children by injecting male serum, taken at the proper temperature, into the female without the usual medium of sexual contact. He denounced this method of propagation as “German madness” and affirmed that in his belief children should come only through mutual love-desire. I shall never forget the expressions of his face and Helen Anderson’s. Surely she must have thought he was talking strangely to speak of these things so frankly and upon such short acquaintance. But I, though I confess it did not occur to me then, understand these processes of his mind to have been the direct result of contemplations concerning me, and it is not unlikely that even as early as that very first visit Warren Harding was entertaining the possibility of becoming the father of a real love-child. Certainly his face was a study.

Miss Anderson assured him of my readiness for a position and we went from the Y. W. C. A. to Judge Elbert H. Gary’s office at 71 Broadway, Empire Building. I remember we stood quite a few minutes waiting for a Broadway street car, and it must have taken us about forty-five minutes to go from 14th Street to Rector Street. I remember how Mr. Harding suddenly seemed to come to himself somewhere in lower Broadway and exclaim, as we were getting off the car, “Why, Nan, why didn’t we take a taxi!” and his surprise was so genuine that I knew he had not realized _where_ he had been during that ride downtown.

_14_

Mr. Harding had told me that he thought the very place for me was in the United States Steel Corporation. I had never even heard of Judge Gary, strange to say, and he explained that he was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the largest industrial corporation in the world.

Mr. Harding handed his card to the secretary in Judge Gary’s outer office. The judge came out immediately. After introducing me to Judge Gary, Mr. Harding inquired casually of him whether his senatorial services in a certain matter had been satisfactory. The judge replied that they had indeed and thanked Mr. Harding. We were then taken into the office of the Comptroller, Mr. Filbert, and Judge Gary made this statement to Mr. Filbert: “Mr. Filbert, I want to help Senator Harding to help this young lady.” Then Judge Gary retired.

Our interview with Mr. Filbert was rather a lengthy one and I thought there were infused in it the elements of a battle of wits between the two men. Mr. Filbert seemed to resent Mr. Harding’s assurance that “Miss Britton can write all of your letters for you!” But, as usual, when we left it was Mr. Filbert who had been won over and I was asked to await a letter from him telling in which branch of service in the Steel Corporation I would be placed.

Going down in the elevator, Mr. Harding whispered to me, “_Now_, do you believe that I love you?”

We took a taxi back to the Manhattan Hotel. We stopped at the 43rd Street entrance. The taxi had not drawn close enough to the curb and there was a space of perhaps ten inches between the running-board and the sidewalk. Mr. Harding caught his foot and tripped, falling in a very awkward position. His face became red and he arose the most embarrassed man imaginable. I remember how it immediately reminded me of a story mother used to tell about my doctor-father, accompanied also by a young lady, when he was making calls in his shiny “buggy”, being suddenly seized with cramps which bore him to the ground when he alighted in front of the patient’s house; he had been obliged to remain in a squatting position for several moments. Mr. Harding’s blush of confusion after his fall remained a good many minutes and was explained by him, “You see, dearie, I’m so crazy about you that I don’t know where I’m stepping!”

The bridal chamber at the Manhattan seemed almost to be our home when we returned to it for the second time, and the manner in which we threw off our wraps and settled ourselves together comfortably in the big arm-chair the most natural thing in the world. And the fact that Mr. Harding told me dozens of times the thing I had always longed to hear from him, “I love you, dearie,” seemed no less the perfectly natural and normal thing. “We were made for each other, Nan,” he said.

Especially did it all seem so right when Mr. Harding repeated to me many times, “I’d like to make _you_ my bride, Nan darling.”

Mr. Harding came over once more before I left for Chicago on my vacation trip, for which my Chicago friends had sent me my railroad ticket. It was upon this occasion that he took me to his room in the Manhattan and talked over with me my prospective position in the United States Steel Corporation. He expressed his desire to have me dignified in the eyes of the officials there who would hear of me through Mr. Filbert, and about fifteen or twenty minutes before it was time for him to catch his train, he sat down at the desk and wrote out in longhand a letter which he said would be suitable for me to send to Mr. Filbert when that gentleman should send me a note to report for further interview at the Steel Corporation. Mr. Harding seemed very sure that I would be the recipient of such a letter and I watched over his shoulder while he wrote a hasty draft of “my reply.” It was the first time I had seen him slam his Oxford glasses upon his classic nose and I marvelled aloud at this feat.

I have always been quite averse to deception such as claiming authorship for something written by another, and I could not sincerely enthuse over the letter Mr. Harding had tried to couch in terms such as I might employ. However, I accepted it with thanks and he needed only to glance at his watch to see that he had barely time to catch his train. He kissed me and rushed away.

In due time I received the letter from Mr. Filbert, in which he asked me to see Miss Blanche Sawyer, in the legal department, who would tell me about my position in the Corporation. But the letter received from Mr. Filbert seemed not to call for the kind of reply Mr. Harding had pencilled and so I wrote one of my own. I sent Mr. Harding a carbon copy, however, which he approved in his next letter to me.

_15_

In early June I left for Chicago to visit my sister Elizabeth before taking up my work with the Steel Corporation in New York, in a stenographic position at $16 per week.

Up to that time I had made no one my confidante--in truth, I was finding it difficult to realize that my hero, Warren G. Harding, loved me, Nan Britton. Naturally I told no one. But my sister, Elizabeth, knowing me as she did, sought a reason for the unusual glow of my cheeks and the happiness written so visibly in my eyes, and when I received my first forty-page love-letter from Mr. Harding, I told Elizabeth the truth. She was unmarried then and living at the Colonial Hotel where I visited her, but she was in love herself with the man she finally married, and, having known so well my childhood adoration for Mr. Harding, sympathized with me though she did not encourage me to continue my friendship with him.

My finances were rather low at that time, I disliked to ask my Chicago benefactors for more money, so I wrote to Mr. Harding about it, as he had instructed me to do. The first money he sent me was in the form of a money order--it seems to me on the American Express Company--for $42, which amount, he told me by letter, was odd enough to make it appear that it was in payment of some possible work I had done for him. Elizabeth went with me when I had it cashed.

A week or so after that I received a letter from Mr. Harding saying he had been asked to speak in Indianapolis, and inviting me to come there to meet him. So I packed my suitcase and the following day Mr. Harding met me at the station in Indianapolis. I was, curiously enough, quite free from nervousness as I walked through the iron gate where he stood waiting, and wondered why _he_ seemed so nervous. His hand shook terribly as he took mine after we were in the taxi. Even his voice shook. For me it was a great moment. I was so happy to be with him.

We went immediately to the Claypool Hotel where he registered me as his niece, Miss Harding. During my stay there (we left late that afternoon), I had several phone calls from newspaper men and Republicans who were endeavoring to get hold of Senator Harding. A great deal of the time he was in my room with me and instructed me to tell them to try him at the Republican Club. It was such fun to have him cut them all for me!

There were no climactic intimacies in Indianapolis. When I came to unpack my things I found a note pinned to my nightie on which Elizabeth had written these words, “I trust you, Nan dear.” Elizabeth knew I loved Mr. Harding very dearly.

Mr. Harding had to leave me after luncheon--which, I believe, we had together, though I do not remember for sure--and I wandered about until the hour set for me to meet him with my bag at the interurban station. I bought a postcard of the Claypool Hotel to keep as a souvenir. I remember the clerk at the desk had occasion to say something to me and it sounded so good to be addressed as “Miss Harding.”

Late that afternoon we took the interurban car to Connersville, Indiana. Mr. Harding was scheduled to speak that evening at Rushville, Indiana, which is near Connersville. That trip on the interurban train was wonderful to me. I wore a black satin dress which my sister Elizabeth had “made over” from one of her own for me. I explained to Mr. Harding that I had a “better one” in my suitcase. “This one suits me, Nan!” he said gaily.

He spent quite some time explaining to me the layout of the City of Washington. He seemed to take much pride in Washington, and I thought to myself that he just looked as though he belonged there rather than in the small city of Marion, Ohio, our home town; he looked eminently the part of a United States Senator. Yet, as I write this, I remember I used to find myself cherishing the nice things he said about our home town.

“What would your sister, Daisy Harding, say if she could see us together?” I exclaimed to him.

He laughed whimsically, evidently thinking rather of his wife.

“What would _Florence_ Harding say, I want to know!” he answered.

At Mr. Harding’s suggestion I registered in Connersville at the McFarlan Hotel, where he also stopped, as “Miss E. N. Christian,” or “Elizabeth N. Christian.” Christian was Mr. Harding’s secretary’s name--George B. Christian--and Mr. Harding said he thought it would be “a good joke” to use his secretary’s name. My father and mother must have known the Christians in Marion, and when in high school I knew the older gentleman, George Christian’s father, “Colonel” as he was called, because he used to take us girls to the drug store and buy us sodas.

Mr. Harding intended to take me to Rushville that evening, but when he knocked on my door I was in the bathroom down the hall, and as his car was waiting for him he could not wait for me. So I was left to roam around the little village and wait for his return. There, too, I bought a postcard picture of the McFarlan Hotel “for remembrance.”

He returned about ten-thirty or eleven. I was sitting in the lobby of the hotel, one of the typical lobbies of a small town hotel, with the chairs lined up before the front window. As he came in he ignored me altogether and I smiled to myself. We had planned to take the midnight train into Chicago, and he had told me that afternoon on the interurban that we would get a berth together if I agreed. But it had really been left undecided.

A taxi was announced about eleven-forty-five and I picked up my bag and went out. Mr. Harding was at my side in a moment. The several politicians who escorted Mr. Harding to the cab did not know of course that we were known to each other, and ostensibly we were not. He spoke up, “I am catching the midnight train into Chicago. Is that your train, young lady?” I replied that it was and he said, “Well, I guess we can both ride down in the same taxi.” Inasmuch as I doubt whether Connersville boasted more than one, it was a wise suggestion! I was afraid the taxi man would surely hear Mr. Harding’s whispered remarks to me on the way down, especially when he said over and over again, “Dearie, ’r y’ going t’ sleep with me? Look at me, Nan: goin’ to sleep with me, dearie?” How I _loved_ to hear him say “dearie”!

We secured a section to Chicago. The remembrance of that trip from Connersville to Chicago is very beautiful although it, too, was free from complete embraces. We were both dressed the next morning before we reached the Englewood Station, about nine minutes from the downtown station, and I remarked to Mr. Harding that he looked a bit tired.

“God, sweetheart! what do you expect? I’m a man, you know.”

In Chicago, we went to a downtown hotel. Here Mr. Harding registered us as man and wife, although I stood apart and do not know the name he used. However, if I were to see that register as well as all of the others wherein we were registered, I am sure I could identify his writing, for he did not disguise it well no matter how hard he tried.

I noticed he was conversing with the clerk and when he joined me he said, in a low voice, on the way to the elevator, “The clerk said if I could prove that you were my wife he would give us the room for nothing!” I asked him laughingly what he had replied to that and he said, “I told him I was not in the habit of proving my wife’s identity and that I had no objection at all to paying for accommodations!” Nevertheless, we were very circumspect while there that morning and our love-making was, as it had been up until then, restricted. We had breakfast served in our room. I remember that it was the first time that season I had had strawberries.

Mr. Harding took the noon train back--I think going direct to Washington.

_16_

During the remainder of my visit with my sister Elizabeth at the Colonial Hotel in Chicago, I analysed my feelings as best I could. What a maze of emotions! I knew I loved Warren Harding more than anything in all the world. However, up to this time I had kept my virginity, despite his very moving appeals to become his completely. Mr. Harding had explained to me that were we to be found on the train coming from Connersville to Chicago, sleeping together in one section, we would invite as severe censure as though we had shared love’s sweetest intimacy; and the trip itself would be sufficient to incriminate us.

But in my own eyes, I was safe so long as my virginity was sustained. It seems to me unbelievable now when I think back on my ignorance about certain things. I had early reached this conclusion: people got married and undressed and slept together; therefore, one must be undressed in order for any harm to come to them. I remember that this belief was so strong in my mind that when, during our ride together from Connersville to Chicago, I experienced sweet thrills from just having Mr. Harding’s hands upon the outside of my nightdress, I became panic-stricken. I inquired tearfully whether he really thought I would have a child right away. Of course this absurdity amused him greatly, but the fact that I was so ignorant seemed to add to his cherishment of me for some reason. And I loved him so dearly.

I had never had, as most girls do have I suppose, a single talk with or from my mother on sex. As a matter of fact, I did not know how babies came into the world, and I frankly told Mr. Harding so. I remember once during one of our “kissing tours”, as he jocularly called them, I asked him what under the sun people were given navels for! I shall never forget how it amused, and then saddened him, nor his face as he told me that that was where I had been attached to my mother. It was all so wonderful and beautiful when he told me. It was he who told me of course what my body functions would be if I were to yield myself to him. He said, “You ask _me_ whatever you want to know; I’ll tell you.”

In my father’s medical library were many books on women and women’s diseases. My sister Elizabeth and I had girl friends who were enormously interested in coming up to my father’s office and poring over these books in his absence, studying with inconceivable interest the lurid pictures portraying various intimate parts of woman’s anatomy, all of course highly colored, but it was to me no less than repulsive to even glance at those medical pictures. I never spent one solitary second looking at them. When I came to the age when all girls experience that normal function which makes of them potential mothers, I was most painfully embarrassed and told my sister Elizabeth, who in turn communicated it to my mother, and even she dwelt very briefly upon it, merely cautioning me not to get my feet unnecessarily wet when I was ill each month.

I told Mr. Harding that I was aware that there was a lovely mystery connected with life itself, but I had early decided that it was a mystery for one’s husband to reveal, and I had been perfectly content not to pry into it. I accepted my puberty as a necessity, even as a sacred necessity to a cause which should later reveal itself. Mr. Harding confessed to me that he had never possessed a woman who had hitherto been possessed of no man, and perhaps that fact concerning me made me the more desirable to him, in addition to his love for me. He told me about his early amours, and he confessed that it had been many years since his home situation had been satisfying.

Mr. Harding told me that he knew of _no_ man except his brother “Deac” who married, having had no previous experience with women. “Brother Deac” was a male virgin, he said, before he married.

The fact that at home we girls were held down, even to not being allowed to attend parties where boys were until we were quite seventeen--at least that applied to me--indicates the measures that my mother and father had taken to guard us. “And no young man is going to visit my girls after ten o’clock at night,” my father used to say. If we expressed sentiments concerning boys--and my sister Elizabeth was early a “man hater” so this refers to me mainly--we were told that they were joshing us, “making fun of us.” So the outlets for my inclinations in this direction were confined to raving about Mr. Harding, and about moving picture actors to whom there was not quite so much parental objection inasmuch as they were only on the screen and in the flesh safely distanced from me.

Of course there was the perfectly logical plea from Mr. Harding that if I loved him so deeply I would consent to belong to him, not merely to be with him, trying him by continued denial. I think I made up to Warren Harding everything I ever denied him--and I was afterward so glad I had not plunged headlong into a relationship which was of such vastness and which I can now look back upon with absolutely no regrets. In the history of lovers, there was, I am sure, none to compare with Warren Gamaliel Harding. And to him I was, or so he has often said, “the sweetheart incomparable.”

_17_

Through my sister I had met, while in Chicago, a young man, whom I shall call Dean Renwick, who was a pianist of considerable talent, and a rather nice-looking boy. He seemed to like me and “after a fashion” asked me to marry him--perhaps he wanted merely to “be engaged” to me. I have often thought since that the poor boy was just lonesome, for I don’t see how I could have appealed to him particularly; our interests were not the same. In any event, I rather seized the idea of annexing a beau--one who was free to marry me if I wanted and he wanted. You see, I tried hard to convince myself that it was wrong to love Mr. Harding as I loved him, that it would mean ultimate surrender, and perhaps sorrow for us and for our families.

My sister Elizabeth was amazed at the letters I would receive from Mr. Harding when I shared their contents with her. I remember among the first of them that came to me while I was in Chicago that month, was one which particularly took me off my feet. It contained in sweet phrasing a picture of his desire for me, summed up in the final parenthetical exclamation, “God! what an anticipation!” He used to tell me that just to visualize me as he loved to see me brought pangs that seemed virginal in their intensity and surpassed any longing he had ever experienced in his life.

I returned to New York the latter part of June, not having committed myself to Dean Renwick beyond verbal gratitude for his regard and an attempt at a show of affection for him which fell flat in my heart.

The first of July, 1917, I went to work in the United States Steel Corporation. I was interviewed by Miss Blanche Sawyer in the legal department. She informed me that although I had had a splendid introduction I would of course have to prove my worth. She took me in and introduced me to Mr. C. L. Close, Manager of the Bureau of Safety, Sanitation and Welfare, in whose office I was employed for the two years that followed. Mr. Close came from Shelby, Ohio, and his wife, formerly Edna Kennedy, had been a Marion girl. Mr. Close knew George Christian pretty well, having known Mr. Christian’s wife who also came from Shelby, Ohio. This was, in a way, a sort of social grounding for me, as George Christian’s boss, Senator Harding, had been instrumental in placing me with his secretary’s friend in the United States Steel Corporation.

I left the Carter home in Sutton Place, preferring for obvious reasons to live by myself, or rather with a strange family where my movements would not be restricted. The first room I rented was with Mr. and Mrs. Daniels who lived at 607 West 136th Street. I had heard of Mrs. Daniels through Helen Anderson who in turn had met her at the Y. M. C. A. where she had filed her notice of “rooms to rent.” I lived there from July to November, 1917.

Of course I was proud of my friendship with Mr. Harding, and, inasmuch as up to this time it had been free from deepest intimacies, I felt freer to discuss him, although as a matter of fact I had always talked about him so much at home and elsewhere that it was much a matter of course.

The Daniels were wise enough to appreciate that their roomer was rather more than “in” with a United States Senator. Moreover, mention was made from time to time in the papers of senate activities in which Mr. Harding took a prominent part, and on August 12, 1917, _The New York Times_ carried in its magazine section a front-page article entitled, “Need of Dictator Urged by Harding.” I wondered at the time whether the publication of this article had been arranged for in a series of telephone calls made to the _Times_, the _Sun_ and newspaper friends of Mr. Harding upon the occasion of one of his visits here when I was with him. The Daniels immediately said that I ought to try to persuade the senator to dine at their home. It would, obviously, have been a feather in their joint social headgear! As a matter of fact, he did not do so, though I had his assurance that he would if it would please _me_.

_18_

It was mid-July when Mr. Harding came over from Washington. We went to a moderate-priced hotel on Seventh Avenue. He told me that that hotel had once been a very nice place, and he knew George and Dan Frank (dry-goods merchants from Marion) used to stop there when in New York.

We were not questioned when he registered, and we were made very comfortable in a room on the sixth floor, if I remember rightly, looking down upon Broadway. Although I was deliriously happy to lie in close embrace with my darling, I just could not even yet permit the intimacies which would mean severance forever from a moral code which, while never identified to me by my parents as the one virtue to hold intact, was intuitively guarded by me as such. Mr. Harding has many times said to me that if people were to know that we had been together intimately without indulging in closest embrace they would not credit the story. In fact, he said to me with something like chagrin that the _men_ would say, “there certainly must have been something wrong with Harding!” But somehow it is characteristic of me to be sure of myself, and when once committed to a cause there is seldom a turning-back. And, as much as I loved Mr. Harding, the traditional frailty men are wont to attribute to women as the weaker sex did not dominate me. This sureness on my part accounted later on for the total lack of “recriminations,” a word Mr. Harding very frequently employed. “Remember, dearie, no recriminations!” he used to say.

On July 30th, 1917, Mr. Harding came again to New York. He decided we could safely go to a hotel where friends of his in Washington had intimated to him that they had stopped under similar unconventional circumstances with no unpleasant consequences.

This was on Broadway in the thirties. I remember so well I wore a pink linen dress which was rather short and enhanced the little-girl look which was often my despair. I waited in the waiting-room while Mr. Harding registered. I have been in that hotel once since that time and I have noted that they have changed the first floor entirely. I think Mr. Harding said he registered under the name of “Hardwick” or maybe “Warwick.” There were no words going up in the elevator.

The day was exceedingly warm and we were glad to see that the room which had been assigned to us had two large windows. The boy threw them open for us and left. The room faced Broadway, but we were high enough not to be bothered by street noises. We were quite alone.

I became Mr. Harding’s bride--as he called me--on that day.

The telephone startled us. Mr. Harding jumped up to answer it. He said, “You’ve got the wrong party.” Almost simultaneously, however, there was a rap at the door. Then it was unlocked from without and two men came in. I could hear them speaking to each other before they entered. One man asked my name. I whispered to Mr. Harding, “What shall I say to them?” curiously enough not feeling much fear in the distress of the situation. I never could explain this to myself except that I loved Warren Harding so much that if he were with me it didn’t matter what happened. “Tell them the truth!” he said. “They’ve got us!” He seemed so pitifully distressed. So I told the man my name, where I lived, where I worked, in answer to queries put to me gruffly. All this information he wrote down on a pad. Mr. Harding sat disconsolately on the edge of the bed, pleading for them to allow me to go. He seemed to base his plea on the argument that we had not disturbed any of their guests, and for this reason we should be allowed to depart in peace. “I’ll answer for both, won’t I?” he entreated them. “Let this poor little girl go!” They told him he should have thought of that before, and other things I thought were very unkind considering he had not bound and dragged me there; I had come of my own free will. I remember he told them I was twenty-two years old, and I, not realizing that he wanted to make me as old as he safely could, interrupted him and stated truthfully that I was only twenty.

To almost every argument he advanced in my behalf they answered, “You’ll have to tell that to the judge.” They intimated that they were sending for a police-patrol. I did become frightened then. About that time one of the men picked up Mr. Harding’s hat. Inside was his name, “W. G. Harding,” in gold lettering, and upon seeing that name they became calm immediately. Not only calm but strangely respectful, withdrawing very soon. We completed our dressing.

We packed our things immediately and the men conducted us to the side entrance. On the way out Mr. Harding handed one of them a $20 bill. When we were in the taxi, he remarked explosively, “Gee, Nan, I thought I wouldn’t get out of that under $1000!”

We went to Churchill’s for dinner and he returned to Washington on the midnight train.