# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 36

During his visits to our 60th Street apartment, Mr. Harding had advised me to deliberate well before deciding upon a suitable place to summer, and await my confinement. He suggested numerous avenues of procedure with regard to helping determine the best place to go, and I remember it was with some timidity that he even made the suggestion that I might look into the Catholic institutions here in the East where I might find comfort and quietude and safety, and perhaps some occupation for diversion. However, this appealed to me not at all, because an institution immediately presented to me a picture of enforced seclusion. I vetoed the idea and he then suggested I take a taxi and go along the Jersey Shore and also over into Long Island, sizing up the possibilities and going there leisurely afterwards. I spent several days going about week-ends in search of a place where I felt I might live happily for the several months intervening. Long Island did not appeal to me and I finally decided upon Asbury Park, New Jersey. There seemed to be plenty of entertainment there, good air, pleasant surroundings, and yet it was far enough from New York to make embarrassing contacts improbable. As a matter of fact, I saw only one man during the whole summer whom I knew, and that was during my first week in Asbury Park while I was still in such figure as to excite no comment.
I registered at the Hotel Monmouth, one block from the ocean, under the name of Mrs. Edmund Norton Christian. ​Mr. Harding had suggested that I simply keep on using the name E. N. Christian, prefixing it with a "Mrs." instead of "Miss" and substituting for the initials "E. N." a man's full name. I used to go a bit with a young fellow back in Marion whose name was Edmund, and had always liked the name. So Edmund it was for the first name. "N" was rather difficult, but one of the managers of a theatre in Chicago where my sister Elizabeth was in charge of the orchestra had the name of Norton. "Edmund Norton Christian!" It sounded rather well and we agreed to it.
My "story" which I took to Asbury Park and which Mr. Harding and I had rehearsed carefully was as follows:
   During the war I had married a Lieutenant Christian, serving in the U. S. Army, who had been sent to Europe almost at the close of the war. My mother had not approved the marriage, so that explained my presence in Asbury Park alone when I more logically would have been under my mother's wing at such a time, with the baby coming.
   Mr. Harding's suggested address in Paris of "17 Rue Can Martin" was adopted by me as my "husband's" permanent address, to which address I sent Lieutenant Christian several letters, allowing the envelopes to lie about conspicuously upon my bedroom dresser for the possible observing eyes of my landlady. I was to surround myself in Asbury Park with the atmosphere of the bride of a war veteran who could not be with his wife during the trying experience of a first childbirth.
I secured a Post Office box immediately in Asbury Park in the name of Mrs. E. N. Christian. My mother of course knew nothing about my physical condition, nor indeed anything about my relationship with Warren Harding, so I was under the necessity of having her write me as Nan Britton. However, I wrote her I was planning to do social secretarial work for a Mrs. Christian for the summer and that I could be addressed in her care, Box so-and-so. My sister Elizabeth was apprised of my fictitious name for the summer, and so in that way I had letters coming from both Elizabeth and Mr. Harding in the name I had assumed. Mr. Harding's letters were tender and solicitous—sweeter love-letters I am sure no one has ever written—and there were many of them, in lieu of our ability to see each other.
​My sunny room at the Hotel Monmouth was comfortable, except for an egregious rose-red rug upon the floor, but I felt somewhat conspicuous, living alone with apparently no friends, and I determined to leave and go to a regular rooming-house.
I stayed at the Monmouth, however, two weeks, during which time the following incident added to my temporary dissatisfaction and comparative unhappiness:
I had left New York for Asbury Park on the 7th of July. One evening on the Boardwalk I read among the society items of the local newspaper which I chanced to glance through that the Frelinghuysens and Senator Harding had been bathing at the Casino on the Boardwalk. My sweetheart in Asbury Park! And he did not look me up! My first sensation was one of fright. Fright occasioned by the suggestion that he was possibly "dropping me." This was followed by a feeling of nausea, a faintness due to the shock which the reading of the announcement gave me. Then, I experienced hurt and a cynicism that would have vented itself in unkind words, I am sure, had I been able to say them to him I loved. After all, I had not got into my condition by myself, and why should he have any feeling of shame about being seen with me! I was seething with indignation. I hurried back to the hotel and wrote him. I referred sarcastically to the incident, expressing my regret at not having taken my books and done my reading down at the Casino on the morning when I might have witnessed an interesting bathing party. I tried to be as unkind as my hurt pride encouraged me to be, and still infuse an element of shame into my reproach.
In New York, shortly afterward, I met him for luncheon. He had not alluded to the bathing party incident in his reply letter, only specified where we should meet, and I felt sorry for what I had written. After all, he was shut up all day long and at night he was not always with congenial companions. Why not allow him a little respite with those he enjoyed? So I had determined to let it pass unmentioned at our luncheon. ​However, before we had finished, he remarked quietly and with appealing intonation, "Sweetheart, on what date did you leave New York?" I replied that it had been the 7th. "Well, Nan, I was in Asbury Park on the 5th, two days before you got there." Not even a retaliatory tone, simply a statement of fact! He was nearly always right, and made me feel ashamed of myself more than once. I just worshipped him when he proved himself and his love for me in ways like this.