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 Jane Leroy would have no such nonsense in her head, and she can’t be much more than twenty.”

“She is twenty-two,” cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly.

“Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. One can’t seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She’d be wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely on that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told her mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight.”

“Did she?” The colonel left the fringe. “But—but perhaps there were other reasons; perhaps she didn’t—”

“Oh, probably she didn’t. But still, she said he was too young. That’s the way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged when I