It had the insistance which power gives, and to a woman--or to most women--power is either money or beauty, since, in the world as it is, office and authority are denied them.

Beauty was gone from the face of the ancient dame, but she still had much money, and, on rare occasions, it gave her a little arrogance.

It did so now as she admonished her beloved son, who at any time would have renounced fortune, or hope of fortune, for some wilful idea of his own.

A less sordid modern did not exist.
He was not very effective in the contest of tongue between his mother and himself.

As the talk went on he foresaw that he was to be beaten; yet he persisted, for he loved a joy-wrangle, as he called it, with his mother.