I could hardly wait to relate this to Mr. Harding—the entire episode I was sure would interest him. However, the knee business and Governor Cox’s reference to Mr. Harding’s being a favorite with the ladies infuriated him far more than it had me, and his letter in answer to mine was the first of its kind I had ever received.
“I never did have any use for that man,” he wrote, “but now I despise him.”
I could scarcely blame him, but why he should have scolded me I could not understand. At least I could not understand it then. I remember well Mr. Harding also wrote, “Perhaps Mr. Cox can assume all responsibilities toward you more capably than I have done.” This was cruel.
I slept little the night I got that letter and could not wait for the morrow when I could phone my darling. During those days I very often called Mr. Harding long distance. I usually called him at noon during my luncheon hour, and I went across the street to the Equitable Building. There was one particular girl who always got the call for me, and she grew so accustomed to getting it that as soon as I appeared above her at the switchboard, she inquired with a smile, “W. G. Harding—Senate Chamber?” Sometimes she was smiling broadly when I came out of the booth and I would not be surprised if she heard many interesting conversations.
But when I nodded to the telephone operator upon this particular occasion I just could not smile. I think she understood something was wrong. She put the call through quickly. I reached him, as usual, in the Senate Chamber. He was cool as could be over the phone and I apologized and apologized, though in truth I hardly knew what for! It grieved me to have him take such an unfair attitude. I was most disconsolate.
But the following day came his letter of forgiveness, yes, of humble apology, and his confession that it had been only his jealousy that had prompted him to write as he had and to speak to me over the phone in that way. He would never do so again, he was a “damned fool,” and so on, but he loved me so much. “And after all, dearie,” he wrote, “there is bound to be jealousy where there is love.” And I knew well he loved me greatly.
Curious that the only man who ever really caused Mr. Harding a moment of jealousy, on my account at least, should have been his opponent in the Presidential election of 1920!
65
This brings to my mind the little personal catechism I underwent upon that first visit to the White House. He had often in the early days questioned me concerning other, younger, men. Of these younger fellows he seemed not so much jealous as curious. But sometimes he pretended jealousy. He often said to me, “Nan, darling, I don’t want you to be a hermit maid.” And so I went occasionally to dinner or to the theatre with fellows nearer my own age. But I told Mr. Harding about them.
Now, upon this first visit in the White House I thought his interest in my social movements seemed almost pathetically curious. “Don’t go off and marry any of the fellows you meet, dearie!” he pleaded with me there on the dilapidated couch in the ante-room. As he spoke he blushed faintly. “I love you so much. Nan—and I don’t like to have you be with anybody else—that’s the real truth!” he finished lamely. I could have screamed my delight at his concern. If he could only have realized that the liveliness exhibited there with him was for me only reaction to the stimulation I felt always when around him. Why, back in Chicago I felt weak, and ill. I hugged him and whispered soothing negations in his ear, denying emphatically that I should ever marry at all since I could not marry him. Free or not free, I told him, I preferred Warren Harding to all the other men in the world put together.