Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/132

114 er," replied Mr. Peters ungallantly, glancing at the other woman.

Mrs. Norton glared.

"Meaning me, I suppose," she rasped. "Well, don't worry. I ain't going to find anything wrong."

"I ain't asking the impossible," responded Mr. Peters. "I ain't asking you not to find anything wrong. I'm just asking you not to mention it when you do." He retired to the kitchen.

Mrs. Norton caressed her puffs lovingly.

"What that man needs," she said, "is a woman's guiding hand. He's lived alone too long. I'd like to have charge of him for a while. Not that I wouldn't be kind but I d be firm. If poor Norton was alive to-day he'd testify that I was always kindness itself. But I insisted on his liv ing up to his promises. When I was a girl I was mighty popular. I had a lot of admirers."

"No one could possibly doubt that," Mr. Magee assured her.

"Then Norton came along," she went on, re warding Magee with a smile, "and said he wanted to make me happy. So I thought I d let him try.