"I don't see how it much matters," she said, "whether he's forty or fifty."
"It doesn't matter in the least," said Newberry. "But you had better make the most of him while you can."
"I don't see why," said Muriel.
"Because he is popular," Preston explained. "There are several women—women and girls—anxious to marry him, and one or other of them is sure to succeed."
Muriel winced. She did not relish the thought of losing her new friend, and she wondered why, if he were really sought after in marriage, he had so much time to devote to her and her aunt and uncle, and why he spoke so little of women to her.
Stainton, indeed, held his tongue about his intentions for just the length of time that, as he had previously concluded, a man must hold his tongue in such matters. If, in the meantime, Muriel heard from both of the Newberrys more interesting stories of his career in the West, and was impressed thereby, if she got from the same reliable source equally romantic accounts of his wealth and was, as the best of us could not in like circumstances help being, a little impressed by these as well, she was, nevertheless, honestly unprepared for his final declaration. She regarded Stainton as a storybook hero, the more so since his conversation never approached the sentimental, and she delighted in his company for the "good time"—it was thus that she described it—which he was "showing her."
In brief, she was at last ready to fall in love with Stainton. Stainton was in love.