Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/305

Rh them. All the reformers in the world can't spoil my thrill then. They're mine. I guess old Napoleon knew that thrill. I guess he was the greatest romancer the world ever knew. When he marched over the mountains with his starving bunch—and looked back and saw them in rags and suffering—for him—well I reckon old Nap was as close to romance then as any man ever gets."

"I wonder." answered Mr. Magee. It came to him suddenly that in each person's definition of this intangible thing might lie exposed something of both character and calling. At the far end of the table Mrs. Norton's lined tired face met his gaze. To her he put his question.

"Well," she answered, and her voice seemed softer than its wont, "I ain't thought much of that word for a good many years now. But when I do—say, I seem to see myself sitting on our porch back home—thirty years ago. I've got on a simple little muslin dress, and I'm slender as Elsie Janis, and the color in my cheeks is—well, it's the sort that Norton likes. And my hair—but—I'm thinking of him, of Norton. He's told