"Aren't you getting on, Follis?"
"No, sir, I am not getting on!" said the colonel shortly. "I am forty-five. No man is fit to marry before he's forty-seven, in my opinion. At that age he's able to treat his wife intelligently. Intelligence is what a young girl most deeply appreciates in a man."
"A—young girl?"
"I prefer a youthful wife. Youth is susceptible of being moulded. I propose to make a perfect specimen of womanhood out of whatever charming and adolescent material fortune bestows upon me." The colonel slightly lifted his eyes until they protruded toward the ceiling. "I shall consider my wife as a sacred trust, a soul for which I am responsible."
"Very good idea," said Rivett without the slightest trace of expression on his face. "Why not marry the little Diana—and mould her into the ideal?"
"Marry her!" blurted out Curmew. "What! Marry a hired—a paid—employee!"
His countenance became crimson and congested, and his eyes popped and popped.
Rivett rose. "My wife worked in her uncle's kitchen when I married her," he said indifferently, and walked out.
On the stairway he joined Diana, also descending.
"Well," he said, looking at her through his round glasses, "you look happy enough."