# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 70

Scott Willits, my brother-in-law, planned to sail for Europe the latter part of January or the first of February of 1922 to study with Professor Otakar Sevcik, whose music colony is in Czechoslovakia, near Prague, where I think he is head of the Music Department in the Conservatory. Shortly before his arrival in New York (my sister Elizabeth and the baby accompanying him East) I made another trip to the White House.
If I am not mistaken, I was to first meet Tim Slade in a waiting room which is on the left as you enter the executive offices. Evidently the imposing-looking doorman in uniform who stands inside the entrance to the offices had been advised of my coming, for I was immediately conducted to the waiting-room. I observed with great interest a portrait of Mr. Harding which stood in one corner of this room, obviously unfinished. And I was examining the portrait when a gentleman, unknown to me, entered. He was a foreigner in appearance, and, I thought to myself, probably the artist in the case. It occurred to me at the same time that he might have been persuaded to come in and obtain what information he could with regard to my identity and the nature of my visit to the President, for he had been standing with the reporters who, as usual, were lined up just outside the President's door.
The foreign gentleman spoke. "I think I have seen you somewhere," he said. Utterly stupid, I thought. "I'm sure I have seen you in Los Angeles. Have I not?" he inquired with an ingratiating smile.
"Oh, very likely," I answered him, going on with my inspection of the unfinished portrait of Mr. Harding. I have never been West of Chicago.
​My tone must have conveyed sarcasm, because he ceased abruptly and turned with me to the portrait. I informed him frankly that the artist had given our President a very weak chin, and I think I made other uncomplimentary remarks about the painting which I discovered was actually his own work. I have often wondered since where that particular portrait hangs. I am sure my suggestions, if the artist followed them, have improved it immensely!
I had received an announcement from Tim Slade, a printed card which informed me that he had been made manager of a brokerage firm in Washington. I went there to see him, before meeting him at the White House later. I remember distinctly how I cried when Tim told me how they were "putting it over" on "the Chief," as he often called Mr. Harding. He said it was a pity, and Mr. Harding ought to know some of the crooked work that was going on all around him. Of course my tendency then was to cry at the least little thing, I was so nervous. (I remember glancing out of the large window in Tim's office—I called him Mr. Slade during those days, but have called him Tim for the past two years—and commenting upon the beauty of a car which he said was his.) And I determined to say to Mr. Harding upon my visit just what Tim had said to me. It didn't seem possible that those around my darling sweetheart would dream of taking advantage of him—but, anyway, I thought I would say something to him about it. I felt confident that if I just told him that some of his associates were getting the best of him that he could immediately stop it!
So, after my friend the artist had left me, and Tim Slade had piloted me through certain difficult rooms into the President's private office, I said to Mr. Harding, almost immediately after the door had been closed, "Sweetheart, Tim Slade says they are doing things behind your back down here to hurt you. . . ." He smiled to note the concern registered in my every feature, and said, "Say, you darling, don't you worry about me!" implying that I had enough to do to attend to my own thoughts and problems. "I'm all right," he added, and smiled broadly to see the ​look of relief that must have passed across my face. I said I really couldn't see what anyone could do to "double-cross" a President, but I did wish he would be watchful. It may have been this time that he told me that he was surrounded by friends, and knowing what a true and loyal friend Warren Harding was it seemed reasonable to believe that he would inspire in others equally loyal friendship toward himself.
I had with me some character sketches which I had written in my course at Columbia University, one of them about his very own self, and which my professor had read aloud to our class. I put the rather bulky package of manuscript in his hands with a request that he read the contents when he found time. "Found time!" he agreed was a good expression. "Gee, Nan, they watch every move I make. Why, I even have to steal the time I take to write to you." I said I thought it was perfectly horrible, and I wished to goodness he were out of it. And a full year had not yet elapsed since he went into office! The months seemed fettered with some ball and chain, so slow they moved.
Of course we talked of Elizabeth Ann and I told him that I thought I had made a terrible mistake in allowing our baby girl to be adopted, even as much as I adored Elizabeth my sister. And again he told me how he would love, if he were free to do it, to take Elizabeth Ann and "make her a real Harding." And the wistfulness of his smile when he said this was precious to me.