"Laska Wall's going to marry Grove," Phil said with a simulation of casualness that would have deceived any one but Rod. "I had the pleasure of wishing her much happiness last night." Rod could think of nothing appropriate to say. He seemed to understand quite clearly. And he couldn't feel anything but resentment against a girl who, having a choice between the two, preferred Grove. Laska fell a long way in his estimation in those few seconds. "Well," he ventured at last, "I should worry. She's a nice girl. But there are plenty of nice girls." "That's true enough," Phil sighed. "But the devil of it is, kid, that I wanted this particular girl. And I can't seem to be cheerful about some one else getting her. Maybe it sounds a bit crude, but I'd almost rather it had been any other man I know. Grove's--well, I pass him up. He doesn't play the game. But he gets by. I suppose he always will. Even the governor, who isn't exactly a fool, and who _is_ decent, can't see our worthy brother as he seems to us. Well, that's another chapter. I'm not funking, but I think I'll get off the Norquay band wagon pretty soon. I don't imagine things will seem quite the same around the old place once Mrs. Grove is installed. New brooms, you know." "Maybe. I don't know. I can easily see where we might begin to feel like intruders in our own home," Rod hazarded. "But what's the use of crossing bridges before you come to 'em?" "I think," Phil returned, "I've come to a rather important one." He fell into moody reflection again. Rod leaned against the rail, unwilling to break into this absorption. He knew Phil was smarting under a hurt, the nature of which he could understand very well. And he was hotly on Phil's side, a position he took instinctively whenever Grove appeared as the protagonist. That it was quite in order for Laska Wall to make her own choice probably carried much less weight with Rod than with Phil. Nor was Rod clearly aware that all his incipient clashes with Grove took root in profound differences of character, rather than in any definite invasion of his rights or Phil's by their elder brother. There were crossed wires everywhere, he reflected. Why should Phil want Laska so badly, and why should Laska prefer by far the lesser man? These mysterious, passionate wants! Rod wandered idly if Mr. Spence, comfortable in a deck chair, his nose in a red-bound volume, could interpret these strange impulses of the flesh which could so sorely try the spirit? He decided Spence could not. Young as he was, Rod knew there were things in life that cannot be learned. They must be felt, suffered mostly. Lessons in the school of self-experience. Phil, he perceived, was getting a lesson, and taking it seriously. His own turn would come.