"You ought to," Rod smiled. "You belong to it now."
"Do I?" she said. "I hadn't thought of it in just that way."
It struck Rod that he might find it difficult to explain just what he meant. He felt that he belonged to this old gray house. Some indefinable bond existed between him and it, something woven about him by heredity, usage, affection, by the generations of his blood who had belonged there before him. Could any one else feel that way about Hawk's Nest? He didn't know.
He looked at Laska with frank admiration. She was one of them now, in a special sense. One of the clan. She was a beautiful woman. Her hair was the color of ripe wheat straw, her eyes a very dark blue, luminous, expressive. She had grace and dignity. Rod had a feeling that she must be innately kind and generous. He wondered why in the name of God such a woman preferred a man like Grove to a man like Phil.
"I hoped we'd live here," she said presently. "But Grove has to be in town."
"Has to be?"
Rod could not help the inflection. Laska looked more keenly at him.
"Do you also disapprove of Grove?" she inquired.
"I also?" Rod countered. "I don't get you, sister-in-law."
"I don't really know you very well, Rod," she said softly. "But I'm quite sure you're not stupid."