Across the lawn as they strolled, there came presently a man in flannels. When he came up to them it turned out to be Phil.
"The governor wants you, Rod," he said. "They're making medicine in the library. I'll look out for Miss Wall."
"You'd better look out for yourself," Rod answered with brotherly impudence.
If he had dreamed how close he came to the mark with this youthful attempt at repartee, Rod would assuredly have kept silence. If there were any one of his blood for whom Rod had a genuine unselfish affection, it was this tall brother who stood smiling down at Laska Wall. In the very nature of things Rod could not know that he had just placed in Laska's hands a weapon to be used—however unconsciously—against his brother, that anything he could say or do should conceivably tilt the uncertain scales of a woman's decision. So he grinned at his own sally and strode away toward the house, whistling "Hey, Johnny Cope" and wondering carelessly why "they" were making medicine and what his father could want of him so urgent that Phil had been sent to command his attendance. So far as Rod was concerned, his father's intentions and commands were usually conveyed in the most casual manner. In the Norquay establishment the authority of the head of the house was such that it never needed to be peremptory.
The wide porch facing seaward was deserted when he came there. He passed into a roomy hall, panelled in weathered oak to a ceiling crossed with massive beams. He took the broad stairway two steps at a bound, and turned more sedately into a big, low-ceilinged room where every inch of wall space was given over to loaded bookshelves.
When he saw what councillors composed Phil's cryptic "they," Rod felt for the first time a shadow of trouble in the offing.
His tutor, Mr. Arthur Spence, occupied one chair. Near him sat Grove, the eldest son of the house, a true Norquay in physique, long-limbed, wide-shouldered, with a more mature, slightly less engaging countenance than his brothers, although he had the same fresh coloring, the same reddish-brown hair and clear bluish-gray eyes. Norquay senior sat with his legs crossed, a bulky, well-preserved man. His years rode him lightly. He looked at his youngest son in silence. No one but Rod, perhaps, would have felt critical disapproval in that impersonal glance. None of the three understood how impressionable to a look, a tone, the nuances of personal atmosphere, an eighteen-year-old boy could be. Rod himself did not realize the lightning-like quality of his own perceptions where people were concerned. He had what he called "hunches." That they invariably proved correct never aroused in him more than a passing wonder.
"Sit down, Rod," his father indicated a chair.
The tutor and Grove arose, left the room. The fancy flitted across Rod's mind that they constituted a jury which had deliberated and given a verdict and now withdrew to permit the august judge to pronounce sentence. He racked his brain for a misdemeanor, a possible offence which merited paternal condemnation. He could recall none. Yet there was an air of suspended judgment in the slow puffing of his father's cigar, the judicial immobility of his manner, in the very silence of that pleasant room with its massive furniture and burdened shelves.
"I've decided it will be as well for you to enter McGill in the fall semester," he said dispassionately, fixing his eyes on his son with a slight obliquity of his brows. "Spence assures me you can easily qualify for entrance. You will go down to Vancouver day after to-morrow, get what clothes you need, then proceed to Montreal and stay with your Aunt Maida until the University opens. Give you a chance to meet a few people and get your bearings."