shrine of worship, darling Nan," he would say or write to me.
This brings to my mind a scene in the New Ebbitt when I, upon a visit to Washington during 1917 or 1918, had waited beyond the appointed hour for him to come to my room. When he came, about half an hour late, he found me en negligée and weeping! He kissed me tenderly and sat down on a chair to take me on his lap. But I, in mingled contrition and ingratiation, perhaps thinking a woman had been the cause of his being held up, dropped at his feet on the floor. He arose immediately and raised me up.
"Don't you ever get down like that to me, you sweetheart!" he said, and the attempted gaiety in his voice somehow carried a note of self-reproach. "I'll do all the kneeling in this family that is to be done!"
Then he explained how he just couldn't get away earlier, and as he talked he fussed with a necklace I was wearing, asking me where I bought it, and pretty soon we were both smiling over my foolishness.
Now at the New Willard, facing our problem together, he was telling me how he had always thought of me as "the perfect sweetheart and perfect mother." Of course those things were immeasurably sweet to hear. So were the things he visioned often for me of our life together after he had "finished with politics." It was an old story to hear about "the farm" where he would like to settle down and just enjoy life. There would be dogs and horses, chickens and pigs, books and friends, and of course he would have to have "his bride!" Yes, this was an old story, but today it sounded strangely new to me. As he talked his voice grew tense. His hands trembled visibly. I took one of them in mine and held it tightly. His gaze was directed out the window and he spoke as to himself. I had to blink very hard to keep back my tears. I had never seen him so moved, so shaken. . . .
". . . and I would take you out there. Nan darling, as—my—wife. . . ." He freed his hand with sudden force and grasped both my arms tightly. "Look at me, dearie!" he
