taken, and of course the Senate Offices do not provide preventive facilities for use in such emergencies.
"That's a very stunning cape you have Nan," were his words as he helped me slip into its brown woolly softness. That was the first time he had seen the cape which Marie Johnson had helped me to select in New York and for which I had paid $75, buying it of course on the instalment plan. I adored the casual intimacy of tone he used.
In mid-January Mr. Harding came over to New York. He telephoned me at the Steel Corporation and I shall never forget how thrilled I was because I hadn't known he was coming and he had surprised me. "Ask Mr. Close if you can have the rest of the afternoon off," he said. Also, he suggested that I borrow the apartment of a friend of mine, a girl of whom I had spoken to him many times.
I told Mr. Close that my sweetheart was here unexpectedly and he gave me permission to leave for the rest of the afternoon. Mr. Close as well as everybody else in the office knew, of course, that I had a sweetheart who lived in Washington. I usually referred to him as "my man"—seldom calling him by name and when I did using the name "Dean."
Then I got my friend's permission to go up to her apartment, at 120th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Mr. Harding got off on the floor below and walked up one flight to prevent any suspicion on the part of the elevator man.
For a second time in less than two weeks, having none of the usual paraphernalia which we always took to hotels, and somehow not particularly concerned about possible consequences, we spent a most intimate afternoon. How indelible my memory of Mr. Harding sitting on the day-bed, his back against the wall, holding me in his arms and looking down at me with a smile that was so sweet that it made me want to cry from sheer contentment! "Happy, dearie?" he asked.
He thought my friend's apartment very attractive and wished that I were earning enough to make it appear possible for me to have just such a place for myself, for he would love to give
