"We'll see how you feel after dinner."
He put his arm around her waist. Together they walked into the nursery where the two children were waiting up to say good night.
[HOT AND COLD BLOOD]
One day when the young Mathers had been married for about a year, Jaqueline walked into the rooms of the hardware brokerage which her husband carried on with more than average success. At the open door of the inner office she stopped and said: "Oh, excuse me—" She had interrupted an apparently trivial yet somehow intriguing scene. A young man named Bronson whom she knew slightly was standing with her husband; the latter had risen from his desk. Bronson seized her husband's hand and shook it earnestly—something more than earnestly. When they heard Jaqueline's step in the doorway both men turned and Jaqueline saw that Bronson's eyes were red.
A moment later he came out, passing her with a somewhat embarrassed "How do you do?" She walked into her husband's office.
"What was Ed Bronson doing here?" she demanded curiously, and at once.
Jim Mather smiled at her, half shutting his gray eyes, and drew her quietly to a sitting position on his desk.
"He just dropped in for a minute," he answered easily. "How's everything at home?"
"All right." She looked at him with curiosity. "What did he want?" she insisted.
"Oh, he just wanted to see me about something."