Rod nursed that idea from the f[oe]tal stage to a lusty infancy. He bore it, still in its swaddling clothes, back with him to the university when hot August wore into cool September, and the smoke haze of forest fires vanished before the autumn rains. He would never become a financial generalissimo like Grove. Unlikely that he would ever be called upon to step into Phil's executive shoes. Unless he voluntarily embarked upon a voyage toward some material port, he would never have to buckle on armor and joust for dollars in the commercial tourney. But--if he were able, if he had the gift and the patience to develop it--he might do these adventuring progenitors a service by making them live again for their descendants--a generation, Rod held, deprived of romance and bold enterprise, limited and circumscribed and in danger of stifling spiritually in the midst of a material plenty. This fascinating project in the field of creative effort he kept to himself--even from Mary Thorn, who had always aided and abetted him in fanciful undertakings, whose moods and reactions seemed mysteriously yet infallibly to keep step with his own. CHAPTER VIII Time bridges many a gap in the life of a man, periods that have no substance in them, no matter how occupied, how filled with minor incident; stretches of days, months, years flow as unctuously as syrup from a tilted spout, as straight and open as a white road across a level plain. Then all at once comes a divergence, a break in the flow, new vistas and compelling actions. Something leaps lancewise at the heart or brain out of the peaceful monotony. Something to be attained looms suddenly like a flame in the dark. Or he finds himself catapulted into some unforeseen clash, tingling to the shock of conflict. Rod Norquay finished the formal education of a gentleman's son in the next two years. He acquitted himself according to the family tradition, escaping high honors without being plucked. He came home in 1913 with a B.A., a few lettered sweaters, a miscellaneous assortment of classical and scientific and philosophical odds and ends imprinted on a fairly retentive memory,--and a half-formed doubt of the utility or advantage of formal education. Having been officially labelled as the finished product of the educational machine he supposed that he would somehow be expected to justify the pains and expense of the cultural process. But where or how he had no idea. He was finished with school. He was home again. Everything was as before. If he were trained for any specific purpose, that purpose was as yet hidden from him. The desire to write an epic novel scarcely qualified as a purpose. In the outwardly simple but internally complicated affairs of the Norquay establishment he was a superfluous unit. Apart from the family he was, as yet, of less consequence than any logger on the Norquay pay roll.