CONFLICT. By Olive Higgins Prouty. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, 1927. $2.50

SHOULD true love or the sense of duty evoked through compassion and pity determine the all too-important decision in one's life, that of marriage? This is the question upon which the theme of "Conflict" is based, and in it Mrs. Prouty has evolved a psychological problem, the solution of which she has presented too insufficiently and inconclusively; in fact, she has given no solution at all. That is left to the reader. That the girl loved through sympathy and later regretted is not, however, left uncertain. Around this lies the theme of the story-a swift moving story; fine, truthful, engrossing.

Felix Nawn, conscientious, silent, inarticulate, is reminiscent of Gene Stratton Porter's Jaspar in "The White Flag." He is a sincere man, but haplessly imbued with a grain of deceit which ultimately leads him to his grave. "Poor, kind, bungling, ineffectual Felix"! He is indispensable, for had he not had the power to draw from Sheilah Miller her unreasoning compassion, there would have been no conflict and no story. These protagonists are direct antitheses not only socially, but intellectually and spiritually.

From a sense of duty in repayment for his devout adoration of her, Sheilah marries Felix, and at that moment begins her life of compunction. It terminates only when Felix, aware of his own inadequacy of supplying her with the love she deserves, purposely involves himself in an accident that causes his death.

After her marriage, Sheilah sinks into veritable oblivion, and because her husband is so lacking in the attributes of a gentleman, welcomes it. Her days of work and regret are somewhat mitigated later by the entrance into her life of Roger Dallinger, a gentleman of instinctively fine qualities to whom in their clandestine relationship she gives the spiritual love her husband never inspired.

At the death of Felix, Sheilah arranges a meeting with Roger, and although the story ends here, we may infer that they later marry, and according to the fictitious story book ending, live happily ever after. A. B. M.