The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 17
Through my sister I had met, while in Chicago, a young man, whom I shall call Dean Renwick, who was a pianist of considerable talent, and a rather nice-looking boy. He seemed to like me and "after a fashion" asked me to marry him—perhaps he wanted merely to "be engaged" to me. I have often thought since that the poor boy was just lonesome, for I don't see how I could have appealed to him particularly; our interests were not the same. In any event, I rather seized the idea of annexing a beau—one who was free to marry me if I wanted and he wanted. You see, I tried hard to convince myself that it was wrong to love Mr. Harding as I loved him, that it would mean ultimate surrender, and perhaps sorrow for us and for our families.
My sister Elizabeth was amazed at the letters I would receive from Mr. Harding when I shared their contents with her. I remember among the first of them that came to me while I was in Chicago that month, was one which particularly took me off my feet. It contained in sweet phrasing a picture of his desire for me, summed up in the final parenthetical exclamation, "God! what an anticipation!" He used to tell me that just to visualize me as he loved to see me brought pangs that seemed virginal in their intensity and surpassed any longing he had ever experienced in his life.
I returned to New York the latter part of June, not having committed myself to Dean Renwick beyond verbal gratitude for his regard and an attempt at a show of affection for him which fell flat in my heart.
The first of July, 1917, I went to work in the United States Steel Corporation. I was interviewed by Miss Blanche Sawyer in the legal department. She informed me that although I had had a splendid introduction I would of course have to prove my worth. She took me in and introduced me to Mr. C. L. Close, Manager of the Bureau of Safety, Sanitation and Welfare, in whose office I was employed for the two years that followed. Mr. Close came from Shelby, Ohio, and his wife, formerly Edna Kennedy, had been a Marion girl. Mr. Close knew George Christian pretty well, having known Mr. Christian's wife who also came from Shelby, Ohio. This was, in a way, a sort of social grounding for me, as George Christian's boss, Senator Harding, had been instrumental in placing me with his secretary's friend in the United States Steel Corporation.
I left the Carter home in Sutton Place, preferring for obvious reasons to live by myself, or rather with a strange family where my movements would not be restricted. The first room I rented was with Mr. and Mrs. Daniels who lived at 607 West 136th Street. I had heard of Mrs. Daniels through Helen Anderson who in turn had met her at the Y. M. C. A. where she had filed her notice of "rooms to rent." I lived there from July to November, 1917.
Of course I was proud of my friendship with Mr. Harding, and, inasmuch as up to this time it had been free from deepest intimacies, I felt freer to discuss him, although as a matter of fact I had always talked about him so much at home and elsewhere that it was much a matter of course.
The Daniels were wise enough to appreciate that their roomer was rather more than "in" with a United States Senator. Moreover, mention was made from time to time in the papers of senate activities in which Mr. Harding took a prominent part, and on August 12, 1917, The New York Times carried in its magazine section a front-page article entitled, "Need of Dictator Urged by Harding." I wondered at the time whether the publication of this article had been arranged for in a series of telephone calls made to the Times, the Sun and newspaper friends of Mr. Harding upon the occasion of one of his visits here when I was with him. The Daniels immediately said that I ought to try to persuade the senator to dine at their home. It would, obviously, have been a feather in their joint social headgear! As a matter of fact, he did not do so, though I had his assurance that he would if it would please me.