"I look about nineteen, don't I?"
"Certainly you do—about eighteen!"
"Well, I am twenty-seven; Silvette is twenty-five. Don't bother with compliments."
"Good Lord! Are you the elder?"
"Tread lightly there," cautioned Silvette, amused, "or you'll presently involve yourself with two indignant spinsters. You've behaved very cleverly. Let well enough alone."
"If you hadn't told me," he began, astonished, "I'd have taken Silvette for nineteen and you for eighteen. I—well, I simply can't realize it."
"How old may you be, cousin?" inquired Silvette with a malicious sweetness impossible to describe.
"I'm thirty-two," he said.
"We thought you less," remarked Diana; then she ventured to glance at him, and the enchanting smile broke suddenly from her lips and eyes.
"Don't you know we do like you, cousin James, or we wouldn't torment you?" said Silvette, laughing.