"I suppose there's no doubt he's to marry Alice Endicott, is there?" "There is Alice herself," Mrs. Neligage answered. "I should call her a pretty big doubt." "At any rate," her companion observed, "Jack can't marry her. Miss Wentstile would never give them a penny." "I have never heard Jack say that he wished to marry her," Mrs. Neligage responded coolly. "You are quite right about Miss Wentstile, though; she regards Jack as the blackest sheep imaginable." Langdon did not speak for a moment or two, and when he did break silence his manner was more decided than before. "What line do you like best to cross by?" he asked. "I have been on so many," she answered, "that I really can't tell." "It is safe to say then that you like a fast boat." She made no reply, and only played nervously with the clever carving in her hand, where little ivory rats were stealing grain with eternal motionless activity. "Of course if you were going over this spring," Langdon said, "we should be likely to meet somewhere on the other side; Paris, very possibly. It is a pity that people gossip so, or we might go on the same steamer." She looked him squarely in the face. "I am not going abroad this summer," she said distinctly. "Oh, my dear Louise," returned he half mockingly, half pleadingly, "you really can't mean that. Europe would be intolerably dull without you." She looked up, pale to the eyes. "My son would be dull here without me," she said. "Oh, Jack," returned the other, shrugging his shoulders, "he'll get on very well. If you were going, you know, you might leave him something--" She started to her feet with eyes blazing. "You had better go," she said in a low voice. "I have endured a good deal from you, Sibley; and I've always known that the day would come when you'd insult me. It will be better for us both if you go." He rose in his turn, as collected as ever. "Insult you, my dear Louise? Why, I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything in the world. I give you leave to repeat every word that I have said to any of your friends,--to Miss Wentstile, or Letty Harbinger, or to Jack--" "If I repeated them to Jack," she interrupted him, "he'd break every bone in your body!" "Would he? I doubt it. At any rate he would have to hear me first; and then--" Mrs. Neligage, all her brightness quenched, her face old and miserable, threw out her hands in despairing supplication. "Go!" she cried. "Go! Or I shall do something we'll both be sorry for! Go, or I'll call that policeman over there." He laughed lightly, but he moved toward the door. "Gad!" he ejaculated. "That would make a pretty item in the evening papers. Well, if you really wish it, I'll go; but I hope you'll think over what I've said, or rather think over what I haven't said, since you haven't seemed pleased with my words. I shall come at one to drive you to the County Club."