Henry laughed, pleased at the interest taken in him, and conscious that he was made much of in this house.
"There may never be any occasion for me to try it," he replied; "even if a vacancy does arise, my age may bar me."
"Not at all; the great Delane was scarcely twenty-four when he got the editorship of the Times," Edgar remarked, with the conviction that he had displayed a deep knowledge of journalistic history and settled this point.
"Besides," added Flo, "you are one of those men whose age is not written on their face. I'm sure no one could guess whether you were twenty or thirty. You could pass for any age you like to name."
"There's something in that," said Henry musingly; "but I'm afraid I must confess that I was only twenty-two last birthday."
"Great Scott! and you'll soon be bossing some chaps old enough to be your pater. The snows of four-and-twenty winters have fallen on my own cranium. It makes me sick to think of it."
From Edgar, obviously.
All this was very sweet to Henry. At twenty-two the average man tingles with pleasure when it is suggested that he would pass for thirty, and at thirty he is secretly purchasing hair-restorers for application to the crown of his head, and plying a razor where he had been wont to cultivate a moustache. He is charmed then beyond measure when his age is guessed at twenty-two.
Mr. Winton settled down in an arm-chair in the dining-room for his after-supper snooze, and while Mrs. Winton had to turn her attention for a little to household affairs, superintending the inefficient maid-of-all-work—whose presence in the house was another mark of prosperity—the others withdrew to the drawing-room. Edgar lounged about aimlessly for a time, and then suddenly pleaded the urgency of a letter he had to write. Henry and Flo were left alone.
This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of young men who are "eligible," but it is not until they have ceased to be in that blissful condition that they suspect a woman's hand had some part in arranging these accidental openings for confidences. Flo looked certainly as innocent as a dove when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's eyes had been wide open he might have noticed that Edgar's recollection of his urgent letter was preceded by a meaning look and a contraction of the brows from his sister.