The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 92
The latter part of July, having grown quite a bit bored with Dijon and not taking seriously the course offered the students at the University, I, as well as others in the Armstrong Party, decided upon going into Switzerland. Miss Anderson remained in Dijon, saying she did not wish to incur the additional expense inasmuch as she had been many times to Switzerland.
Geneva was our destination, and there was rare beauty in the mountain scenery enroute there from Dijon and later in the city itself. I stopped at the Hotel de la Paix, and my room, from the small balcony of which I could view the lake and afar off the snowy-capped Mt. Blanc, was both French in artistry and American in practical comforts.
I had noted in the morning paper, which was a Paris edition of a New York paper, the progress the Harding party was making through Alaska. I felt here in Switzerland, almost by myself, as though I were in another world. I felt as though I were walking through a picture-book. Even the friendships I was making seemed of the picture-book sort. I was more real to myself when I dreamed, for when I dreamed I was invariably taken back to more familiar surroundings, oftentimes spending whole nights either with my sweetheart or with our daughter.
I had promised my sister Elizabeth I would try to get fat, and she had made her appeal on the ground of keeping my appearance, telling me I was not at all presentable when so thin. So I had endeavored to eat as much as possible and the traveling around had not made it difficult. And the food here at the Hotel de la Paix was fine, par excellence. Mr. Harding used to tell me that to him it was a real pleasure just to sit and watch me eat when I was hungry, for I seemed to so enjoy my food. He used to order things he thought perhaps would tempt me or things I told him I had never eaten; I remember he taught me to eat artichokes, things I had never heard of until then. I was quite a hick. Mr. Harding himself could with ease carry considerable weight. He was very tall—fully a head taller than I. Nevertheless, I used to tease him, when, upon observing that he was not eating as heartily as usual, he would confess that he was on a self-imposed diet, "to keep his stomach down." "Why, you're not too fat to suit me, darling," I would say. "What d'yuh mean, 'keep down your stomach'?" Then, with head on one side and the adorable smile I loved, he would lean over the table and whisper, "So I can hold you closer, you darling!"