She eyed him with a tantalizing smile that made Rod uncomfortable.
"You're just as well pleased we don't live here, aren't you now?" she went on. "And you aren't the only one with that attitude, are you?"
Rod considered a moment. He thought he understood her. And he retaliated, in so far as his breeding permitted him to retaliate. He had a retentive memory to draw on.
"I told you once that only the oldest son counted for much in this family," he replied, with a short laugh. "You drew the lucky number. Isn't that good enough?"
She sat silent for a few seconds.
"I am answered," she said briefly.
The subject ended there. Some one came to get Laska for a dance. Rod, who was tired of dancing, a little bored with the high spirits which had originated chiefly in various decanters, betook himself upstairs to bed.
Something had gone wrong with Hawk's Nest. The old sense of cohesion, of the family as a unit, seemed lacking. Rod missed that atmosphere of solidarity. Until now he had in a vague fashion regarded his brothers, his father and grandfather, his sister Dorothy, the little groups of first and second cousins as links in a chain. There might possibly be a weak link or two—he considered Grove such a one—nevertheless it had been a chain forged of kinship, common aspirations, interests, traditions. For each of them and for all of the fairly numerous brood descended collaterally from that adventurous fur-trader, Hawk's Nest and the Norquay estate had formed a cherished background, a guarantee of certain rights and privileges, a sure wellspring of reasonable opportunity to make the best of the business of living.
Materially it was still that. But Rod had a curious impression of the old spirit having subtly withdrawn, of them all having become individualistic, separate entities with conflicting desires, ambitions, both active and potential,—individual egos unleashed, clashing, bent head-long on each his own ends, without regard to the others.
He blamed Grove for this,—and his father for letting Grove make it so. Grove was the disturbing element. He was turning everything inside out. Rod didn't like the people Grove surrounded himself with. He resented Hawk's Nest being subject at Grove's pleasure to an invasion by free-drinking, slang-slinging people, whose pursuit was not so much pleasure as excitement.