Perhaps, as Phil put it in fraternal raillery, Isabel thought that if one Norquay in the Wall family was a good thing, two would be better. The truth is that Isabel suddenly became aware of Rod as a man and characteristically sought to annex him by the usual methods. She had finished her education in a presumably fashionable school on the Atlantic seaboard that spring, coincident with Mary Thorn's graduation from the University of B.C. Isabel's social experience had been judicially expanded in the intervals of education. She was twenty now, a sophisticated young person, accustomed to associating with other sophisticated young persons of both sexes. She had seen little of Rod except during summer vacations. For a year she had not seen him at all. Now she seemed to discover him anew and to mark him for her own. Rod granted her uncommon charm. She was pretty and petite and modish, and she spoke the current lingo with effortless facility. But while she pleased his eye she failed to stir his blood. There was a sufficient reason for Rod's immunity, which of course Isabel did not know. It became obvious that Isabel was in deadly earnest. And when it became equally obvious to Rod that both families were complacently agreeable to Isabel's maneuverings he grinned first, then grew sober as the remedies he used to cure Isabel merely aggravated the disease. It wasn't a simple flirtatious liking Isabel had for him. Rod was too keen to make such a mistake. It seemed that this dainty doll-like creature was capable of intense feeling and not too sure in her control of the emotional disturbance. Rod began by being amused. Then he felt sorry. In the end he grew a little alarmed over the net result of being sympathetic. It is highly discomforting to a young man to have a girl weep spontaneously on his chest, unless he conceives it to be his special mission and blessed privilege to soothe this particular damsel's tears. Isabel did that one evening in the shadow of a hoary old cedar in Hawk's Nest grounds. She couldn't help it, she said, after a long embarrassed silence during which she dabbed the tears away. She was a fool and she knew it, but it couldn't be helped. One wasn't responsible for one's feelings, was one? And Rod, with a little ache in his breast, a great deal of wordless sympathy for Isabel, because he had for a long time suffered that queer state of stifled longing, that seemed sometimes as if it would drive him mad, agreed that one was not. They let it go at that.