"I know nothing about him except that his name is Barnstable, and that he came from the West somewhere. He's joined the Calif Club lately. How he got in I don't understand; but he seems to have loads of money." "He is a beast," Mrs. Neligage pronounced by way of dismissing the subject. "What did Mrs. Harbinger mean by thanking you for arranging something with the Count? What have you to do with him?" "Oh, that is a secret." "Then if it is a secret tell it at once." "I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger has bought a couple as a present for Tom." "She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?" "She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for him." "But you wrote me that you detested the Count." "So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just because you don't happen to like him?" She laughed lightly. "You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe." Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance. "She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her benefit." The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a passion--a thing which happened but seldom--his face oddly took on the look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going, self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that Jack would never amount to anything worth while. Mother and son walked on in silence a moment, and then the lady observed, in a voice as dispassionate as ever:-- "She is a silly little thing. I believe even you could wind her round your finger." "I haven't any intention of trying." "So you have given me to understand before; but now that I am going away you might at least let me go with the consolation of knowing you'd provided for yourself. You must marry somebody with money, and she has no end of it." He braced back his shoulders as if he found it not altogether easy not to reply impatiently. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Oh, to Europe. Anywhere out of the arctic zone of the New England conscience. I've had as long a spell of respectability as I can stand, my boy."