The inverted pyramid

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

But this satisfactory state of affairs was broken into by Mr. Grosvenor Sylvester Norquay in his most characteristic manner. He came back from England in due course and steamed straight to Hawk's Nest on the Kowloon. Contrary to his custom, he came alone, and he arrived for some inscrutable reason in his worst temper and his most disagreeable manner.

"Well," he said to Rod at the first opening, "you made a hash of things for fair, didn't you? By Jove, I used to think you had taste if not judgment. I perceive you have neither."

"Are you referring to my marriage?" Rod asked.

"Excellent guesser. You don't imagine I'm referring to the price of logs or foreign exchange, do you?"

"Those are about the only matters you're qualified to pass on, and I'm doubtful about even that," Rod said quietly. "That'll be about all in that vein, elder brother. I know you don't like it—although it's none of your business. I daresay you're going to cut up as rough as you can on general principles. But another break like that and I'll smash you. You may be the big noise in the Norquay Trust, but dictatorial trust company methods won't work in the family. So you'd better be a good dog and not growl or show your teeth. I'll whip you if you do. I'm quite competent to do the job. If you think I'm not, just go ahead and be insulting and act the snob and get critical and sneer; the whole bag of tricks you put on when you want to hurt anybody's feelings. I may not be able to prevent you. But I can make you sorry. And I surely will. How would you like to go back to town with two black eyes and your classical nose a bit off center?"

Rod told him all this in an ordinary conversational tone. And when he issued such a direct challenge, he was not merely letting a little steam off his youthful chest. He had a feeling that the only way to deal with Grove was to defy him,—to act first. The threat of personal chastisement was perhaps Rod's only concession to a personal animus. He meant precisely what he said. There was a definite limit to what he would permit Grove to do and say, where Mary was concerned. A dozen times in his life his hands had doubled into fists against Grove—an involuntary action. He was—or he had been—a little ashamed of this eagerness to do bodily damage to his brother. Once, long ago, Grove's domineering tactics had roused Phil out of his placidity, and Rod had felt his heart uplifted at sight of Grove knocked sprawling with a single hearty punch. Not that Grove lacked the fighting heart; he would have fought Phil to a finish then and there, but for their father's scandalized interference. Grove couldn't stand long in a losing fight; he couldn't take punishment; that was a weakness both his brothers had fathomed long before.

And Rod had never forgotten that for weeks thereafter Grove was politic, to say the least, in his invasions of Phil's territory. Nor had Rod ever quite rid himself of the feeling that it would be a pleasure to repeat such a chastisement with his own hands. They were blood-brothers. There was even a profound physical likeness, except that Grove ran slightly to beef. But they didn't think, or act, or feel alike. They were antagonistic at every point where their lives touched. And Rod did not mean, if he could help it, to let this scowling elder duplicate of himself put a single spoke in the wheel which promised to revolve so smoothly for Mary and himself.

It was so childish, Rod said to himself impatiently, when Grove left him with an inarticulate growl, for him to take it that way. What difference need it make to Grove whom his brother married? Grove was the biggest toad in a puddle where big toads were common.

But it was the nature of the man to restrict the splashing to such as he approved, if it were in his power. It was also the nature of the man to be greedy of power, to exercise it arbitrarily if he could, regardless of justice or even common sense.

For the class of people out of which Mary Thorn had sprung Grove Norquay had only a disdainful recognition. They were the material upon which such as he were ordained to thrive. Rod knew Grove and Grove's crowd. Grove's dignity would suffer at their hands. Grove would be maddened by jocular references to his new sister-in-law. A hand-logger's daughter! How quaint of Rod! Grove would be as disagreeable to Mary as he dared, as vindictive as he could. He was made that way,—more vindictive over trifles than he would be over a deadly wrong.