He granted that Phil might pass muster. Grove wouldn't. He could think of several men, young and old, within the Norquay orbit, who wouldn't. But Grove was the most outstanding, because he had the most intimate knowledge of Grove's personality and his surreptitious amours, which had been overlapping each other ever since Rod was old enough to understand such matters. If a reasonable state of personal purity were necessary to the Spencian image of a gentleman, Grove could not qualify. Yet Mr. Spence had as much respect for Grove Norquay as Grove's world in general,—which was a great deal more than either of his brothers held for him. Grove was clever. He was handsome. He could be generous to his equals. His manner was beyond reproach. Yet outside of his own class women were to Grove a sporting proposition, to be pursued and captured for his sensual gratification.
No, there was something lacking in the wisdom Mr. Spence had attempted to impart. Mr. Spence distinguished sharply between love and lust. He had explained the difference without making the difference clear. Rod wondered which of the two had overtaken him all unexpectedly, sitting beside Mary Thorn on a log. Which was it that made his heart beat faster. Was it love,—blooming precociously? Or was it the other thing, against which Spence had warned him to be strong?
CHAPTER IV
Rod had come down the path with a club bag in one hand, talking amiably with his father. He had seen his trunk put aboard the Haida. Mrs. Wall, Laska, Isabel, Miss Sherburne, Grove, and three or four other unattached young men and women who made up the house party were on the float to see him off. They filled the quiet upper bay with light talk and low laughter. Rod stood by the deck rail chaffering with them. But his eye missed one figure. He had not seen Phil since breakfast. Already the engineer was priming the big motor. He could hear the hissing of air through open petcocks. And old Phil hadn't come down to say "good-by, kid."
Rod's glance wandered to Grove, standing by Laska Wall, a fine upright figure of a man in white flannels. And he wondered idly why this elder son of the house should be like flint to his brothers' steel without ever seeming aware of the hostile undercurrents he so often aroused. Or perhaps he simply did not care. Perhaps he felt such a complete assurance that the liking and loyalty of younger brothers was a negligible thing.
Then, as the first deep bark of the exhaust waked a hollow echo in Mermaid Bay, Phil came down with long, quick strides, dressed in a gray suit, a bag in his hand.
There was a quick exchange of casual exclamations, a shaking of hands. Phil stepped aboard.
"All right," he called to the deck hand. "Cast off."
The Haida backed clear, gathered way as she turned into the slackening tide. She slid past the Gillard light, lonely and untended on its steel pillar. The narrow gorge of a canoe pass opened behind the island. From a rocky point south of the pass and the light a trail that Rod knew ran to Oliver Thorn's house. And as Rod's eyes swept the shore, he marked a figure on the highest point of this beach trail. He waved his hat. Something white fluttered like a pennant in answer. Then the cruiser's way cut off Gillard, the red roof of Hawk's Nest, and Mary Thorn on the trail. They vanished behind the low, timbered hills of Valdez, and Rod turned to his brother.