Not only in her looks did Mrs. Neligage give the impression of youth, but her movements and her unquenchable vivacity might put to a disadvantage half of the young girls. She tripped up the steps as lightly as a leaf blown by the wind, her trim figure swaying as lithely as a willow-shoot. As she came to Jack she said to him in a tone loud enough to be heard by all who were on the piazza:-- "Oh, Jack, come into the house a moment. I want to show you a letter." She dropped a gay greeting here and there as she led the way, and in a moment they were alone inside the house. Mrs. Neligage turned instantly, with a face from which all gayety had vanished as the color of a ballet-dancer's cheek vanishes under the pall of a green light. "Jack," she said hastily, "I am desperate. I am in the worst scrape I ever was in, in my life. Can you raise any money?" He looked at her a moment in amazed silence; then he laughed roughly. "Money?" he retorted. "I am all but turned out of the club to-day for want of it. This is probably my last game." "You are not in earnest?" she demanded, pressing closer to him, and putting her hand on his arm. "You are not really going to leave the club?" "What else can I do? The committee think it isn't possible to let things go any longer." She looked into his face, her own hardening. She studied him with a keen glance, which he met firmly, yet with evident effort. "Jack," she said at length, her voice lower, "there is only one way out of it. Last night you wouldn't listen to me; but you must now. You must marry May Calthorpe. If you were engaged to her it would be easy enough to raise money." "You talk as if she were only waiting for me to say the word, and she'd rush into my arms." "She will, she must, if you'll have her. You wouldn't take her for your own good, but you've got to do it for mine. You can't let me be ruined just through your obstinacy." "Ruined? What under the canopy do you mean, mother? You are trying to scare me to make me go your way." "I'm not, Jack; upon my word I'm not! I tell you I'm in an awful mess, and you must stand by me." Jack turned away from her and walked toward the window; then he faced her again with a look which evidently questioned how far she was really in earnest. There had been occasions when Mrs. Neligage had used her histrionic powers to get the better of her son in some domestic discussion, and the price of such success is inevitably distrust. Now she faced him boldly, and met his look with a nod of perfect comprehension. "Yes, I am telling you the truth, Jacky. There is nothing for it but for us both to go to smash if you won't take May." "Take May," he echoed impatiently, "how you do keep saying that! How can I take her? She doesn't care a straw about me anyway, and I've no doubt she looks on me as one of the old fellows."