Something in her manner evidently irritated him more and more. She spoke with a little indefinable defiant swagger, as if she intended to anger him. He looked at her no longer, but fixed his gaze on the distance. "When you talk of giving up respectability," he remarked in an aggrieved tone, "I should think you might consider me." Her eyes danced, as if she were delighted to see him becoming angry. "Oh, I do, Jack, I assure you; but I really cannot afford to be respectable any longer. Respectability is the most expensive luxury of civilization; and how can I keep it up when I'm in debt to everybody that'll trust me." "Then you might economize." "Economize! Ye gods! This from you, Jack! Where did you hear the word? I'm sure you know nothing of the thing." He laughed in evident self-despite. "We are a nice pair of ruffianly adventurers," he responded; "a regular pair of genteel paupers. But we've both got to pull up, I tell you." "Oh, heavens!" was his mother's reply. "Don't talk to me of pulling up. What fun do I have as it is but quarreling with Miss Wentstile and snubbing Harry Bradish? I've got to keep up my authority in our set, or I should lose even these amusements." Jack flashed her a swift, questioning look, and with a new note in his voice, a note of doubt at once and desperation, blurted out a fresh question. "How about flirting with Sibley Langdon?" Mrs. Neligage flushed slightly and for a brief second contracted her well-arched eyebrows, but in an instant she was herself again. "Oh, well," she returned, with a pretty little shrug, "that of course is a trifle better, but not much. Sibley really cares for himself so entirely that there's very little to be got out of him." "But you know how you make folks talk." "Oh, folks always talk. There is always as much gossip about nothing as about something." "But he puts on such a damnable air of proprietorship," Jack burst out, with much more feeling than he had thus far shown. "I know I shall kick him some time." "That is the sort of thing you had better leave to the Barnstable man," she responded dryly. "Sibley only has the air of owning everything. That's just his nature. He's really less fun than good old Harry Bradish. But such as he is, he is the best I can do. If that stuffy old invalid wife of his would only die, I think I'd marry him out of hand for his money." Jack threw out his arm with an angry gesture. "For Heaven's sake, mother," he said, "what are you after that you are going on so? You know you drive me wild when you get into this sort of a talk." "Or I might elope with him as it is, you know," she continued in her most teasing manner; but watching him intently. "What in the deuce do you talk to me like that for!" he cried, shaking himself savagely. "You're my mother!" Mrs. Neligage grew suddenly grave. She drew closer to her son, and slipped her hand through his arm.