LYING YING back upon the pillowed window seat in the security of her locked bedroom, Mary Compton opened the book which held for her an interest so peculiar and intense. Reading was rendered difficult by her tears, which started almost at once; for the description of Presh Ballantine, as seen by his mother, began on the second page, and there were passages in that description which, to one who understood the entire situation, as Mary felt she did, and who, moreover, had cared for Presh as she had, were filled with a grim, unconscious comedy which made them terrible. If thoughts of Presh had brought the tears, it was this grotesqueness in his mother's book which caused them to sting. Mrs. Ballantine had not, of course, used the nickname in the book. She had, Mary felt, always resented it as an impertinence, for "Presh" was a schoolboy contraction of "Precious," which had been the mother's early appellation for her only child. Where he was first definitely mentioned in the book his name was printed out in full-Francis Knox Ballantine and thereafter he was referred to by his first name only. That was another tragi-comic point-his full name differing by but a single letter from his mother's. It told so clearly what she had intended him to be, what she had tried to make of him. Not a Ballantine, but a Knox-a Frances Knox. Mary dimly recollected gentle Mr. Ballantine. He was associated in her mind with the dear old brownstone house on Madison Avenue where she had lived until her parents died. She had a memory of herself as a child peeping over the banisters when guests were arriving for dinner parties, and of seeing Mr. Ballantine enter the front door behind his consort with an air, it seemed to her, a little timid; and, though she could not in those days have explained this matter to herself, she felt sympathy for Mr. Ballantine because she, too, was timid in the presence of this lady. Yet Mary remembered what her aunt, Miss Banks, with whom she now lived, had long ago said to her of the Ballantines and Knoxes; and she knew that her aunt's opinions were sound, although her friends relished them most, perhaps, for the picturesque vigor with which they were expressed. "Mr. Ballantine was an able lawyer and a lovable man," Miss Banks had said of Presh's father. "I was always a little sorry for him. Frances ran him just as she runs the boy. The boy's like his father. Not weak-just easy-going. Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved Still, when Mr. Ballantine died, I couldn't help feeling somehow that he had crept off to the tomb with his tail between his legs." "Auntie! What an idea!" "I suppose it was my knowledge of the Knoxes that made me feel that way about him," Miss Banks continued. "It's a family strain. They have to run everything. Frances's sister—the one whose husband was ambassador-tried to run Italy. To get her home they had to recall him. Both the girls are like old Ira Knox, their father. He had a head like a mountain profile. When some wag who had borrowed money of his bank made a little joke-'Strong as a Knox,' he said-the old gentleman didn't like it, and to show he didn't like it, called the loan. There's not a glint of humor in the whole Knox tribe." "You'd hardly say Presh lacked humor?" "No, indeed. But he's not like the Knoxes. He gets his humor from his father, and all his nice ways. Old Mr. Knox was called a bully in Wall Street, but I've always thought the Knoxes didn't mean to be bullies. It's just that they're always certain their way is the right way. Being so big-boned and powerful, they ride everybody down. But they don't realize it. Reading Mrs. Ballantine s tribute to her son, Mary recalled out of the long ago this conversation with her aunt. Miss Banks had been right. The Knoxes didn't realize it. The book made that point ludicrously, pitifully clear. Francis [wrote Presh's mother in her introductory chapter] may indeed justly be referred to as an ideal son. Though he possessed by nature a strong, determined character-such a character as my father, the late Ira Knox, was known for—and, though from boyhood he exhibited in sports a highly commendable aggressiveness which promised well for later life, the side he showed me, his mother, was uniformly gentle, chivalrous, and tender. I may indeed say that not a single harsh word or thought ever passed between us. My rule was never to interfere with him in anything if I could possibly avoid doing so, and even then not to compel him to my views, but rather to point the way of wisdom, making it so clear to him that his own native good sense a quality with which, I am thankful to say, the Knoxes were well endowed-would bring him to the right decision. Thus, though often with a certain guidance from me, he always in the end made up his own mind, and I never found it necessary actually to cross him. In reasoning with him I did not treat him as a child, but talked with him as I used to with his father before him. Nor can I refrain from adding that if more American mothers and fathers would follow my method in rearing and training their offspring, they would not only find their relations with them more satisfying and harmonious, but would in the long run make better men and women of them. So that was Mrs. Ballantine's conception of her relations with her son! From somewhere behind Mary's tears there came the flicker of a little laugh. And then, as though to extinguish the faint gleam of mirth, the tears flowed faster than before. Again she thought of what her aunt had said so long ago, "The Knoxes ride everybody down." That, to her, had been the point of paramount importance. That was why, loving Presh, she had brought herself finally to refuse him. The Knoxes did ride everybody down. Mr. Ballantine had been ridden down. Presh had been ridden down, and his wife would certainly be ridden down. It was inevitable. And the torturing thing about it was that the sweetness of nature which so endeared him to Mary was precisely what made it inevitable. To marry him would be to become not so much a wife as a daughter-in-law. The mere thought of a perpetual endeavor to live up to the standards Mrs. Ballantine would set for a daughter-inlaw put Mary's nerves on edge. It would be futile. She had no wish to try, and, moreover, she had standards of her own. That she could have made Presh happy if left to do it in her own way, she |