"It is a good plan. I have no fault to find with it. The stability, the working power of a large fortune is always depleted by being broken into fragments by division among each generation. The Norquay estate, as he outlined it in his journal, would be a tree ample enough to shelter all under its branches, so long as the trunk was kept intact.
"And it seemed to me Grove had all the qualifications to carry on with honor and profit. He had personality. He had energy and resource. He had ambition, which determined him on a career. I took his ability for granted; his character as a sure inheritance. His faults I conceded as the faults of lusty young manhood, minor failings to be put away in the face of responsibility.
"Yet you and Phil never had such convictions about your brother. Why?"
He paused on the interrogation.
"His weaknesses seemed fundamental. To us some of the things he did were despicable. He did things we would have been ashamed to do. Where his appetites and passions and desires were concerned, he had no consideration for any one or anything, nor any scruple about what he did if it suited him to do it—and it was in his power. That was very clear to both Phil and myself. That was how he seemed to us. We used to wonder why you never had any inkling of what we considered his real character—or lack of it."
Rod was in no mood to be charitable, to mince words, to evade a frank answer to the direct question.
His father pondered briefly.
"You were right and I was wrong," he observed sadly. "All wrong. Phil put himself on record before he went overseas. He warned me not to trust Grove too far. It angered me at the time. It made our parting cool. That's one of my keenest regrets. He was right; you were both right. How can a man make such a blunder in reading his own son? Perhaps because he was his son, I have prided myself on a knowledge of men, too. Ah, well."
He nursed his chin in one palm.
"The Norquay Trust is insolvent," he announced presently. "Gutted, looted from within. It is about to topple over with a resounding crash. I have an outline of the position here," he ruffled the papers in his hand. "It seems incredible, but it is true."