Cosden looked up surprised. "Why, Monty!" he expostulated, "don't get peevish!"
"Don't bother me with foolish questions," was the ungracious rejoinder. "I'm studying the situation. Later I'll give you my impressions."
"But you've seen her," Cosden persisted. "What do you think of the perspective?"
"She is very young," Huntington replied, regaining his composure and realizing that to fall in with Cosden's mood was easier than to explain his own.
"She's twenty—just the right age for a man thirty-eight," was the complacent reply. "I've figured it all out. A woman grows old faster than a man, and eighteen years is just the proper handicap."
"Which is her husband?" Huntington asked.
"Her husband?" Cosden repeated after him.
"I mean her mother's husband," Huntington corrected hastily; "which one is Mr. Thatcher?"
"The man with the smooth face; I don't know the others. We'll meet them later."
As the party left the dining-room Mr. Thatcher recognized Cosden and fell behind to greet him.