Men who could waltz were scarce.

The Major had successfully grappled with the difficulties of learning the dance in mature life; and the young ladies rewarded him nobly for the effort.

That is to say, they took the assumption of youth for granted in the palpable presence of fifty.
Knowing everybody and being welcome everywhere, playing a good hand at whist, and having an inexhaustible fancy in the invention of a dinner, Major Mulvany naturally belonged to all the best clubs of his time.
Percy Linwood and he constantly met in the billiard-room or at the dinner-table.

The Major approved of the easy, handsome, pleasant-tempered young man.

"I have lost the first freshness of youth," he used to say, with pathetic resignation, "and I see myself revived, as it were, in Percy.