Rod smiled grimly. He had become more closely acquainted with the ethics of modern business. It struck him that if corporations were in the nature of things soulless and dehumanized in matters of money, that attribute tended to spread to individuals. He wondered if that were possible. It was a disagreeable conclusion; one he hesitated to accept. But he knew this: that both his father and himself had aroused a strange combination of antagonism and contempt by merely doing what they felt in honor bound to do. The antagonism was the fiercer for being grounded in cupidity. It smoldered under the surface, ready to blaze out if he left an opening. There were those who would like to pick his bones. He was aware of this attitude. It burgeoned forth in many aspects of his affairs. If he had looted the Norquay Trust within the law and let the plucked victims pick themselves bewildered out of the ruin, while he sat back with his share of the plunder and the great Norquay estate still firm in his grasp, these contemporaries of his would have esteemed him as a clever man, almost a great man, certainly a man with a genius for affairs. A man of affairs; a man who could safely and expeditiously get possession of large sums of money. What was the difference? He might have been execrated by some who lost their money. The losers, they said cynically, always squeal. But if he had shrugged his shoulders and stood aside, his own class would have backed him to a man. They would have rallied round his standard. They would have upheld him in the press, socially, by every means within their power. Their admiration would have been tinctured with envy. They would have understood so clearly that genuine greatness was involved in making such a coup and getting clear when the crash came. His own people,--no, by God, the Walls and Deanes and Richstons were not his kind of people, not one of the whole pushing caravan, the petty tradesmen swollen to greatness with one generation of a rich country's development, grown greater with exorbitant profits derived from a war which had been fought for them but not by them. They were Grove's kind of people. And Grove had been a--a---- Well, he didn't like to ponder on Grove. There was no encouragement in that. He found his brother's memory depressing. Grove reminded him of a joyous diver plunging headfirst into the troubled waters of life and coming up, not with a pearl but with a handful of slimy ooze. Grove, he reflected, would probably not have given a second thought to discharging Stagg. And he was compelled to give several regretful thoughts to that unfortunate necessity. Stagg knocked and entered, stood waiting. Rod motioned him to a chair. "How long have you and Mrs. Stagg been with us?" he asked. "Twenty-seven years next November, sir."