"Younger," declared Stainton. "I have had to fight there harder than anywhere else, but I have won. In spite of that first love disappointment, in spite of friends that have gone back on me now and then, in spite of rough work in rough places and among rough men, in spite of money lost and money won, I have kept on believing. I was saying to someone else this evening that there was comfort in the philosophy of the sour-grapes, but I didn't really mean it. At any rate, I never followed the sour-grape school. I have just believed. That is the whole secret of it, George; all that you have to do is to say to yourself; 'I don't care; I won't doubt. I believe in the world; I believe in Man.'"
Holt smiled.
"Wait till you know New York," said he.
"I am doubt-proof," answered Stainton. "I am immune."
"And so——" urged Holt, dropping this phase of the subject and reverting to Preston Newberry's niece.
"And so," Stainton took him up, "I decided to marry, sell my mine as soon as a good offer comes and be easy. I came to New York. I went to-night to the opera." His voice grew unaffectedly softer. "And at the opera," he said, "I saw the girl that I had loved all those years ago; that dead girl come to life again; not a curve altered, not a tint faded; not a day older. I knew, in a flash, that it must be my old sweetheart's daughter. And it was."
"What? Muriel Stannard?"
"Whose mother was Muriel Benson. Precisely."
Holt whistled softly.
"Well?" asked he.