"Then," smiled Stainton, "I hope you will soon need many luxuries and will soon find a good woman to supply them. I thank you for your interest, George," he went on; "but you have been arguing about me, and, in spite of our ages, you are old and I am young. I am young, I tell you, and even if I were not, I could see nothing wrong in a marriage between a man of my years and a girl of Miss Stannard's." "Between fifty and eighteen?" "Between fifty and eighteen. Exactly. It happens every day." "It does. But do you think because it's plenty, it's right? Do you think that whatever happens often, happens for the best?" "I do not think; I know. I know that a girl of eighteen is better off with a man steady enough to protect and guide her than she is with an irresponsible boy of her own years." "How about the irresponsible girl? Why should the boy be more irresponsible than the girl?" "The girl will have a mature man to protect and guide her." "A man of twenty-five? Or a man of fifty? Protect and guide!" echoed Holt. "Is _that_ marriage?" "An important part of it." "Pff!" George sniffed. "You must think that guiding and protecting is an easy business." "I think," said Stainton, good-humouredly, "that you are a good deal of a fool." "So you've got it all arranged in your own mind?" Holt, who had ordered his sixth whiskey-and-soda, poured it down his throat. The fifth was already thickening his speech. "All," said Stainton. "I see. You've counted on everything but God. Don't you think you'd better reckon a little on God, Jim?" Stainton bore with him. After all, Holt had now reached that stage of drunkenness at which most drinkers invite the Deity to a part in their libations. "What I do," Stainton said, "I do without blaming God for my success or failure. I am not one of those persons who, when anything unusually unpleasant comes to them, refer to it as 'God's will.'" Holt hiccoughed. Religion had never bothered him and so he, in his sober moments, religiously refrained from bothering religion. His cups, however, were sometimes theological. "Still, He's there, you know," said Holt. "Your God?" asked Stainton. "Why, your god is only your own prejudices made infinite." "You know what I mean," Holt laboriously explained. "In the really 'portant things of life, what's fellow do, and what makes him do it?" "Reason," suggested Stainton. "The really 'portant things generally come too quick for--for--lemme see: for reason." "Philosophy?" "To quick for that, too." "Instinct, perhaps." "'Nd don't say 'nstinct. Fellow's 'nstincts are low, but he does something--high. Sort of surroundings 's been brought up in--partly. Not altogether. Partly's something else; something from--from----" Holt groped for the word. "From outside," he concluded triumphantly and waved an explanatory hand. "Well," he added, "that's God." Stainton rose.