# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 112

I thought about it all very seriously that night and when Friday, January the 4th, came, and Captain Neilsen called me on the telephone in the evening, I informed him that I had decided to marry him the following day, Saturday, January 5th.
With my actual acceptance of his offer of marriage, it seemed to me he was taken somewhat aback, though he said he would meet me, as I asked him to do, at the Municipal Building, the following noon. He was late, but explained that he had been inspecting a ship and could not come when he had planned.
We secured our marriage license. When the man asked what the captain's business was I spoke up and said, as he had told me many times, "He is a ship broker." The captain looked slightly embarrassed as he said to the clerk, "Better say 'ship's master'." I didn't know that this different title meant another kind of business and it didn't worry me specially.
With the license in hand we went over to the Savarin in the basement of the Woolworth Building for our luncheon. As we were crossing the street, I remember that the captain had said that his money was not all available. So I asked him, "You could raise $50,000 if you had to, couldn't you?" thinking I would avail myself of $30,000 to put in trust immediately for Elizabeth Ann, and the captain, Elizabeth Ann and I would keep the other $20,000 to live upon and have a home for ourselves, until he went back to work after our proposed honeymoon. "Oh, of course, if I had to, I could raise $50,000. I should say so!" The captain was very certain about it.
This was all the assurance I needed. Anyone who could raise $50,000 would have enough and plenty to keep me and my baby. And I would be economical, and would try my best to love him to show him how grateful I was that he had made it possible for me to have my baby with me.
That evening at nine o'clock we were married in the parson​age of a Swedish Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue. Helen Anderson and the minister's wife were our witnesses. We went to the Alamac Hotel for three days. We had driven Miss Anderson home and were alone for the first time since we had become man and wife.
It seemed almost sacrilegious to me to yield to my husband the body which had belonged so completely to Warren Harding, and I appreciated his leaving me for half an hour. It gave me an opportunity to mentally pull myself together. I told myself that I would soon have Elizabeth Ann and it would all be so worth while. But my husband looked to me so much like a million other men. . . . I just could not feel that I had done the fair thing by either of us. . . . I did not love him that way.
Monday morning following our marriage on Saturday evening I returned to work. I had not given my employer any notice and I knew I would have to remain at the office until he found someone to take my place. Moreover, Captain Neilsen had told me during the previous day that he would immediately send to Norway and get some money which his legal guardian was holding for him; and he would also start negotiations for the sale of certain property which he, as the eldest child in his family, should have urged the sale of long ago, after the death of his parents. It would amount to $90,000 in all, and $30,000 would come to him as his share.
From the Alamac we moved up to Bretton Hall, and I kept my secretarial position for a couple of weeks. I had not been married more than a week when I discovered, through questioning the captain closely, that he did not actually have sufficient funds in the bank to enable us to live even another month. But he assured me that his next trip to Europe would net him a commission of $20,000 on a ship he expected to sell. It seems to me he must have procured a loan, and with some of this money and $40 of my own salary I bought myself a diamond circlet wedding ring, for which I paid $165 and which I wore on my engagement finger next to the ring given me by Mr. Harding.
I grew fonder of the captain during the two weeks before he ​sailed for Europe. He was so enthusiastic about taking Elizabeth Ann, and said that just as soon as he returned from Europe we would begin the arrangements.
During his absence abroad, after I had given up my position, a friend of mine from Chicago came on to New York. When I learned she was coming, and realized how little money I had, I borrowed $150 from Helen Anderson, assuring her the captain would return it to her just as soon as he came back from Europe. With part of this I bought new shoes, a new dress, and entertained once for my Chicago friend at a small theatre party. I really felt quite dignified as Mrs. Neilsen.
As soon as the captain stepped into our room at Bretton Hall I asked him what success had attended his trip. He had not sold the boat. Nor had his money come from Norway. He looked very much distressed about it and I felt genuinely sorry for him. He kept telling me to be patient, something would "break soon." But the weeks passed, and he said he would have to make another trip to Europe, and still nothing had "broken"—except my hopes.