There was a chorus of protest.

“She looks like you,” Delilah told him.  “Except for her nose, she’s a Ballard.  There’s nothing of her father in her, except her beautiful disposition.”

She flashed a challenging glance at Gordon.  He stiffened.  Such women as Delilah Jeliffe might have their place in the eternal scheme of femininity, but he doubted it.

“She is a Ballard even in that,” he said, formally; “it is Constance whose disposition is beyond criticism, not mine.”

“And now that you’ve carried off Constance, you’re going to take Barry,” Delilah reproached him.

Leila dropped the baby’s hand.

“Yes,” Gordon discussed the subject with evident reluctance, “he’s going over with me, to learn the business—­he may never have a better opportunity.”

The light went out of Barry’s eyes.  He left the little group, wandered to the window, and stood looking out.

“Mary will go next,” Delilah prophesied.  “With Constance and Barry on the other side, she won’t be able to keep away.”

Mary shook her head.  “What would Aunt Isabelle and Susan Jenks and Pittiwitz do without me?”

“What would I do without you?” Porter demanded, boldly.  “Don’t put such ideas in her head, Delilah; she’s remote enough as it is.”

But Mary was not listening.  Barry had slipped from the room, and presently she followed him.  Leila had seen him go, and had looked after him longingly, but of late she had seemed timid in her public demonstrations; it was as if she felt when she was under the eye of others that by some sign or look she might betray her secret.

Mary found Barry down-stairs in the little office, his head in his hands.

“Dear boy,” she said, and touched his bright hair with hesitating fingers.

He reached up and caught her hand.

“Mary,” he said, brokenly, “what’s the use?  I began wrong—­and I guess I’ll go on wrong to the end.”

And now she spoke with earnestness, both hands on his shoulders.

“Oh, Barry, boy—­if you fight, fight with all your weapons.  And don’t let the wrong thoughts go on molding you into the wrong thing.  If you think you are going to fail, you’ll fail.  But if you think of yourself as conquering, triumphant—­if you think of yourself as coming back to Leila, victorious, why you’ll come that way; you’ll come strong and radiant, a man among men, Barry.”

It was this convincing optimism of Mary Ballard’s which brought to weaker natures a sense of actual achievement.  To hear Mary say, “You can do it,” was to believe in one’s own powers.  For the first time in his life Barry felt it.  Hitherto, Mary had seemed rather worrying when it came to rules of conduct—­rather unreasonable in her demands upon him.  But now he was caught up on the wings of her belief in him.

“Do you think I can?” a light had leaped into his tired eyes.