In addition to the above, I have my own clothes to buy and I have to pay my mother something. I will admit, when we started out last fall, I included in the $25 paid mother for food the small amount paid her as a tutor, but I found that she could not even buy her stockings on that, and it has had to be increased. And I need not tell you of all the other current expenses one incurs living in a New York apartment.
I give you the foregoing that you may know what I have been up against. Last fall I had assistance from a friend of mine, but that assistance is forthcoming no longer, for the reason that it involved a point of honor with me and I refused to take it after the first of the year. Therefore, I have been forced since then to go into debt in every direction to keep going at all. I have drawn ahead of my salary and I have borrowed. I do not feel under obligations to explain this, but am doing so that you may know how I have tried to carry on by myself before appealing again to the Hardings.
Two weeks or so ago I had a couple of telephone calls I could not account for—three, to be exact—because I was out when they came, or else when I was in, the party would be gone when I answered the phone. Then last week a man came in, in person, and asked the telephone operator if I worked there. Upon receiving a reply in the affirmative, when she started to ring my telephone, he hastily and mysteriously assured her that he did not wish to disturb me at that moment and hurried out. Of course, I have been and am so busy here, with so many details on my mind, both of business and of my home, that I cannot have that sort of thing occurring. The operators description of him answered that of Mr. Votaw (or Mr. Christian), and I concluded it must have been he. Thereupon, I wrote to ask and received a reply which gave me a clue to Mr. Votaw's attitude toward me. I have written them—addressing the letter to Mr. Votaw, because I think it is he and not Mrs. Votaw who is responsible for the Votaw attitude—and I have not heard from them.
Now, without wasting any more time in explanations, I want to say that I am not at all unconscious of the fact that any publicity in connection with this would reflect upon the character and reputation of Mr. Harding, notwithstanding the fact that I personally am not at all ashamed of a single step I have ever taken. Nevertheless, there are possibilities of its becoming an international scandal—and I am sure you will agree that we none of us want that. Nor do I mean that it shall be, except as it might creep out in my approaching Mr. Harding's friends for assistance which should be forthcoming from his own family. But I am sure that some of the friends he had during his lifetime would treat his child with more consideration than some of his closest relatives have treated her. And I am not afraid to find out.
I have been patient, I have been decent, I have been fair—but it seems