A glow of anger began to burn in Rod, and mixed with it a detached wonder at the type of man before him. He could imagine Wall viewing him with impersonal pity, and brushing him aside in pursuit of his own ends. There was a pachydermous quality in the man. He couldn't be hurt. He had no qualms. For him the world of humanity was not made up of men and women who had good impulses or bad ones, wisdom and folly, conditioned by many things. No, to him the world was made up of two kinds of people; those who could get what they wanted and those who couldn't. For Wall there were no fine distinctions, no ethical hazards in which a man might lose his soul. The firm grasp, the unrelenting hold, justified itself. Anything profitable was good business; anything unprofitable was bad business. Rod looked at him and wondered if Wall carried that remorseless philosophy into his social life, his family life; if he applied it to his pleasure, and in what degree. And if he did whether he found the balance in his life's ledger to lie on the credit or the debit side. "You're reckoned wealthy, aren't you?" Rod said to him. "Three or four millions?" "Something like that," Wall answered indifferently. "I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that there are things money can't get you?" Rod said quietly. "This place happens to be one of those things." Wall chewed his cigar, impassively reflecting. Rod turned away. "Three hundred thousand," Wall said suddenly. Rod shook his head. "No use. I wouldn't sell Hawk's Nest any more than you'd sell one of your ears. I was born here. My people have been born and lived and died and are buried here. Very old-fashioned notion, of course, but it happens to mean something to me. And please remember this, Wall. If it had to pass out of my hands, you would be the last man in the world I'd care to have hang up your hat here and call it home." He left Wall to reflect on that. A shrill blast from the high-lead donkey put an end to the day's work. Men came stringing out of the woods. In twenty minutes more the supper gong clanged. As they sat at dinner Rod told Isabel of her father's offer. Isabel smiled cynically.