On the other hand, Carstairs,--a firm and positive character,--received the scantiest consideration from the boy on the rare occasions when he felt it necessary to employ paternal measures. Alfred either sulked or openly defied him. Always the mother stepped into the breach. She never temporized. She either promptly supported the father's demand or opposed it. No matter which point of view she took, the youngster invariably succumbed. In plain words, it was _her_ command that he obeyed and not his father's. As time went on, Carstairs came to recognize the resistless combination that opposed him, and, while the realization was far from comforting, his common-sense ordered him to accept the situation, especially as nothing could be clearer than the fact that she was bringing her son up with the most rigid regard for his future. She had her eyes set far ahead; she was seeing him always as a man and not as a boy. That much, at least, Carstairs conceded, and was more proud of her than he cared to admit, even to himself. He watched the sturdy, splendid, earnest development of his boy under the influence of a force stronger than any he could have exercised. Sometimes he wondered if it was the German in her that made for the rather unusual strength which so rarely rises above the weakness of a mother's pity. Once he laughingly had inquired what she would have done had their child been born a girl. “I should have been content to let _you_ bring her up,” said she, with a twinkle in her eye. While she was resolute, almost unyielding in regard to her growing son, her attitude toward her husband was in all other respects amazingly free from assertiveness or arrogance. On the contrary, she was submissive almost to the point of humility. He was her man. He was her law. A simple, unwavering respect for his strength, his position, his authority in the home of which he was the head, rendered her incapable of opposing his slightest wish. An odd timidity, singularly out of keeping with her physical as well as her mental endowments, surrounded her with that pleasing and,--to all men,--gratifying atmosphere of femininity so dear to the heart of every lord and master. She made him comfortable. And she was, despite her social activities, a good and capable house-wife,--one of the old-fashioned kind who thinks first of her man's comfort and, although in this instance it was not demanded, of his purse. He was her man; it was her duty to serve him. As her boy merged swiftly,--almost abruptly into manhood,--her long-maintained grip of iron relaxed. Carstairs, noting the change, was puzzled. He was a long time in arriving at the solution. It was very simple after all: she merely had admitted another _man_ into her calculations. Her boy had become a man,--a strong, dominant man,--and she was ready, even willing, to relinquish the temporary power she had exerted over him.