Therefore you may imagine my hurt when he replied, in the same tone of voice I remembered so unpleasantly, that they had company and could not see me. I assured him that I would take only a little of their time, even inviting him to come with Mrs. Votaw to the hotel where I would take a room for the day in order that we might have sufficient privacy.
“But I tell you we’ve got company!” he shouted over the phone, “my brother whom I have not seen for two years is here and we can’t see you!”
It seemed inexplicable to me that a matter which affected his brother-in-law, Mr. Harding, whom he professed to love so dearly, could be relatively unimportant even though he had not seen his own brother for twenty years. But I saw no occasion for arguing.
“Oh, very well, Mr. Votaw,” I replied quietly, “if you don’t care to see me, it is all right.”
“I didn’t say we didn’t want to see you!” he bawled back at me, “but we can’t now.” And he rang off before I could answer him.
I wondered just what Warren Harding would have said could he have “listened in” on that conversation, and with the feeling I have had right along that Mr. Harding has known everything I have tried to do to right the situation, it is very likely that he did listen in. I remembered how Mr. Harding used to remark when I inquired who had answered the phone at times when I called him at his office in the Senate Building after I had arrived in Washington for a visit, “Oh, that was Heber Votaw. He hangs around the office a great deal.” And I knew of Mr. Votaw’s appointment as superintendent of the prison work, received at his brother-in-law’s hands, and marvelled how he could treat with such unkindness the woman who he must have realized meant a very great deal to Warren Harding, who was the father of her child.
The following letter from me to the Votaws is quoted in full, and a carbon copy of this letter went to Daisy Harding:
October 18th, 1925.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Votaw:
I did not know until comparatively recently that Miss Harding had told Mrs. Votaw the strange story I went to Ohio last June especially to reveal to her. Nor did I know that Mrs. Votaw in turn had repeated the story to her husband until I received a letter from Miss Harding on Friday which gave me a clue to the attitude you both have taken. Had I been aware of your knowledge, I would, with the characteristic directness I have acquired the past few years from being obliged to take situations in hand, have communicated with you long since. I have found that when I set my mind definitely to a given task or duty, the thing is to accomplish it as speedily as possible. I am therefore only sorry that I must write you at this time when I have much less leisure than I enjoyed the latter part of August or during the entire month of September.