"A man of twenty-five? Or a man of fifty? Protect and guide!" echoed Holt. "Is that marriage?"
"An important part of it."
"Pff!" George sniffed. "You must think that guiding and protecting is an easy business."
"I think," said Stainton, good-humouredly, "that you are a good deal of a fool."
"So you've got it all arranged in your own mind?" Holt, who had ordered his sixth whiskey-and-soda, poured it down his throat. The fifth was already thickening his speech.
"All," said Stainton.
"I see. You've counted on everything but God. Don't you think you'd better reckon a little on God, Jim?"
Stainton bore with him. After all, Holt had now reached that stage of drunkenness at which most drinkers invite the Deity to a part in their libations.
"What I do," Stainton said, "I do without blaming God for my success or failure. I am not one of those persons who, when anything unusually unpleasant comes to them, refer to it as 'God's will.'"
Holt hiccoughed. Religion had never bothered him and so he, in his sober moments, religiously refrained from bothering religion. His cups, however, were sometimes theological.