Miss Harding had told me how her brother Warren had been instrumental in helping the Archbold sisters to better positions, and she had related how he had jocosely inquired of them on the morning of the Presidential election which way they intended to vote! Politics never stood in Mr. Harding’s way where friendship was concerned. Still, both the Archbold sisters had been frank to sponsor the cause of James M. Cox, Democratic candidate for President in 1920, and there is every reason to believe that they cast their votes for him. And now to see Lois Archbold right in front of me listening to Mr. Harding speak! I was amazed.
There was all about me the sound of clearing of throats and blowing of noses, and my own eyes were wet when Mr. Harding ceased speaking. But you may be sure it was by far the greatest surprise I had received for a long time to behold Lois Archbold’s eyes streaming with tears when she, unconscious of my presence in the immediate crowd, turned to walk away. It was to me only another triumph for my beloved Warren.
77
When we returned to Judge Mouser’s the judge was sitting on the porch, and his remark to his wife was, “Dell, one of us ought to go over to Dr. Harding’s and say how-do-you-do to President and Mrs. Harding.” Dr. Harding was the President’s father. His home was the social headquarters for the presidential party. After considerable discussion, Mrs. Mouser decided she herself would go and convey the Judge’s compliments to the President and his wife.
“But you must come along with me, Nan,” she said turning to me.
I insisted I did not care to go, fearing Mr. Harding might disapprove for some reason, but Mrs. Mouser naturally could not see why I objected to going.
“You adore Mr. Harding so, Nan, and always have, so I can’t see why you object to going over—it’s just a matter of form, anyway.” So it did seem up to me to accompany her and in the end I consented.
Annabel, or else young Mrs. Grant Mouser (I have forgotten which), drove us over but would not go in with us.
We found that Mr. Harding had gone off with the Dr. Carl Sawyers, Sr. and Jr., and Brigadier-General Charles G. Dawes to play golf, but Mrs. Warren Harding was receiving informally in the living-room of Dr. Harding’s home. With her we found Mr. and Mrs. “Ed” Uhler, and it seems to me another person whom I cannot recall now was there also.
If I had any personal misgivings as to the spirit of Mrs. Harding’s greeting they were entirely without foundation, for, after shaking hands with Mrs. Mouser, she held out her hand to me with a smile. “Why, how-do-you-do, Nan? How are you?” she inquired pleasantly. If I had ever had reason to doubt that Warren Harding’s love for another woman was suspected by his legal wife, I was with this meeting disarmed of all further semi-pleasurable apprehension that I was the person Florence Harding would name! As a matter of frank truth, it was never that I particularly cared whether or not she did discover it, but Mr. Harding’s statement to me that “she’d raise hell, Nan!” had been my cue for guarding well a situation which Mr. Harding had termed his “greatest joy.” In the past year and a half, Tim Slade has stated to me that if Florence Harding had known the love Warren Harding and I bore to each other, the qualities latent in her temperament would not have released him but might very possibly have sought some form of retaliation. What a strange love, I thought, that would hold the happiness of one’s husband in a vise! But my solicitude for Mr. Harding’s peace of mind insured every cautionary measure on my part.