“Honey, why do you have Dr. Sawyer?” I asked him, as he used his handkerchief. “My father used to make fun of him, really!” I informed him frankly. Mr. Harding’s mouth twitched and registered a faint smile. Seeing I had not offended him, I continued. “I don’t see why you have to consult the same doctor Mrs. Harding consults, anyway. If he were much of a doctor, he would put you to bed!”
“You’d take good care of me, wouldn’t you, Nan?” he asked fondly. He bent over to kiss me. “I’m selfish to kiss you with this cold,” he said, drawing back. “I don’t want to give it to you!” and the semblance of a smile lighted his dear, tired face.
I kissed him very long in reply. “Say, sweetheart, I never got anything from you that wasn’t good!” I told him, kissing him again. He stood up and took me in his arms in the corner away from the window. He used to draw his mouth into a certain shape when he made ready to kiss me, which somehow gave him and me the fullest rapture of the kiss. I have never read or heard of anyone else doing it. After we had returned to the couch he turned again to voicing his troubles.
“Nan,” he confided to me, “I’m in debt right now $50,000, and I just can’t seem to get out!” It occurred to me even then that this was a small amount for a President to owe, but I simply said how sorry I was, and that I would economize, and help a little bit that way. Somehow this promise seemed to amuse him, and his tone indicated that what he gave me was the least of his worries. “I don’t care how much I give you, dearie,” he said, with a caressing smile, “so long as you can account plausibly for it. I want you to have everything to make you comfortable. I only tell you these things that you may know what I’m up against down here.” He rose and paced the little room. Somehow I had a feeling that he was not telling me the whole of his troubles. “Really, dearie,” he said, slowly coming back to the couch, “my burdens are more than I can bear!” The tired face was lifted to the window and the tired eyes gazed wearily at the wintry vista outside.
The misery of that picture! The haggard face, the bent figure, the white head! Surely this was not the man who had come, at the call of a nation, to serve, and to “give all of heart, and mind, and abiding love of country to service in our common cause.” My heart ached for him. Plainly, the disillusionments suffered in the Presidency of these United States were cruel. I said that I wished he might get out of it, resign, anything that would get him away from his worries, anything that would relieve this darling man who was being tortured with the slow stabs of disappointment and disillusionment. And they called this the greatest position in the land—this nerve-wrecking, energy-sapping job,—the Presidency of the United States!
President Harding shook his head sadly. “No, I’m in jail, Nan, and can’t get out!”
He opened wider the door leading into his own office and we went in there again. The darkness of the day made our figures less visible over near the grate fireplace than they were in the ante-room, which was small and therefore quite light. Mr. Harding said his stenographer was at liberty to come in and ask about anything, but we’d “take a chance,” anyway.
“Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart,” I cried in his arms, “tell me, what constitutes happiness for me? What constitutes our happiness, darling?”
He kissed me tenderly.
“Work, dearie, work!” he whispered.