"Seems?" said Preston. "He is."
His positive tone startled Mrs. Newberry into indiscretion.
"He is fif——" she began, then, catching her husband's eye, she corrected herself: "He must be nearly——"
"He is forty," said Newberry, scowling.
"Oh, Uncle Preston," protested Muriel, "Mr. Holt said——"
"George Holt is a fool," said Newberry, "and always was."
"Your uncle is quite right, Muriel," said Ethel. "Mr. Holt does gossip. Besides, he is not the sort of person a young girl should quote."
"You quote him, Aunt Ethel—often."
"Your aunt," said Preston, "is not a young girl. Mr. Stainton is younger than Holt, I dare say, for he has evidently taken good care of himself, and Holt never takes care of anything, least of all his health."
The air of importance that her uncle and aunt seemed to attach to so trivial a matter as a few years more or less in the age of any man past thirty puzzled Muriel, and she betrayed her bewilderment.