# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 158

I reached Marion, Ohio, my home town, about eleven o'clock the following morning, and went immediately to the Lewis home on Vernon Heights Boulevard. Daisy Harding (Mrs. Ralph Lewis) was alone in the house when I arrived and she was surprised to see me come in at that hour, having expected me earlier in the morning. I explained that I had come by way of Washington, and she did not ask me why. She said her brother intended to motor up from Columbus that afternoon to see me. It was like a raw March day, although it was actually the first day of April, and I observed that Dr. Harding would have quite a drive, for Columbus was forty-five miles away. I was exceedingly tired and lay down upon the couch in the living-room, the selfsame couch where I had sat and revealed to Miss Harding my story nearly one year before. Miss Harding left me to prepare luncheon, saying her maid had proven unsatisfactory and she had therefore dismissed her and was doing her own housework.
It was very quiet there in the living-room, and the peaceful atmosphere and Daisy Harding's loving welcome to me made it seem highly unlikely that the interview could be other than ​friendly. Mr. Harding's picture, the one with Laddie Boy, stood in the same spot on the table behind the couch where I lay . . . all was restful with my sweetheart . . . no more worries . . . harmony . . .
My mental relaxation continued as I chatted with Miss Harding during luncheon, and after luncheon we did the dishes together. Dr. George Tryon Harding III arrived by motor in a blizzard. Miss Harding and I were in her own sitting-room upstairs, and she went down to open the door for her brother. We were to have our interview there in Miss Harding's room, and so I remained on the chaise longue where I had been resting.
"Now, remember, Nan, brother 'Deac' intends to grill you unmercifully. Don't get angry. Just try to remain calm," cautioned Miss Harding before going downstairs to greet her brother. She brought him upstairs immediately. Dr. Harding shook hands with me in a business-like manner and with scarcely a smile, and Miss Harding went out of the room. Evidently her brother had decided that she might betray her sympathy, and it had been thought better for him to see me alone. But that did not matter to me, for my story was the same, no matter to whom it was repeated, and I can repeat it indefinitely without change.
I opened the conversation. "Well, Dr. Harding," I remarked pleasantly, as he sat down upon the edge of Miss Harding's rocker, "I suppose this story is a strange one to you." He replied very briefly that it was a story he felt obliged to investigate carefully, inasmuch as his brother was not here to stand up for himself. I agreed that that was right and proper.
"Now, where did the first intimacy which you allege take place?" inquired Dr. Harding, looking up from the little notebook which was poised upon his knee. A wave of hurt swept over me, that he should plunge so indelicately into facts which were for me so shrouded in sentiment.
I said, "Suppose I begin from the very beginning, Dr. Harding, giving you a bit of my childhood background and adoration for your brother?" He acquiesced and relaxed slightly.
I recalled my childhood, my father's friendship with his editor-​brother, my love of Warren Harding, which began when I was scarcely thirteen, my father's death when I was about sixteen, my subsequent schooling at the expense of my father's college classmates, my first meeting with Mr. Harding in New York following my request to him for a position, and, gradually, our further meetings which led to ultimate intimacies prompted by mutual love.
After I had got into the meetings with Mr. Harding which were all-night trysts, Dr. Harding interrupted me many times to ask, "When was that?" or "Where did that meeting take place?" and I supplied from memory the approximate time and place. All of this information he jotted down in his little notebook. It was as difficult for me to recall aloud for the doctor the many occasions of our sweet visits together as it had been to recite the whole story to his sister, Daisy Harding, but the knowledge that I was doing it for Elizabeth Ann gave me the needed courage to go on.
I had not dreamed that Dr. Harding intended to catechize me as a judge might a witness, and I wondered if by so doing he had thought to frighten me into confusion. But this was an unworthy thought. The seriousness of the situation probably justified in his eyes the use of pencil and pad and direct questions. Dr. Harding is rather a small man, and somehow, seeing him sitting there on the edge of the chair, plying me with questions as to "when?" and "where?" aroused my pity. If his brother Warren were only there! He would say, as he did once before, "Let this poor little girl go—I'll answer your questions."
I could not help associating Mr. Harding's remark about his brother with his brother's very attitude toward me now. "Brother Deac is the only man I know who never slept with a woman prior to his marriage," Mr. Harding had said to me. And as I looked at him now while I poured out my story again through tears and exclamations of love for him I worshipped, it occurred to me that indeed it might be difficult for such a frail looking individual to understandingly sympathize with a situation of this ​kind, which had needed the strength of a love this man could probably never know to yield the glory of consummation Warren Harding and I had experienced.