“I’m looking,” said Mary, “and from Staithley Edge it’s in perspective. Rupert, this air up here! I’m not afraid. Not here. Not now. You... you’ve got growing pains, and they say they’re imaginary, but I know they’re good. You’re a bigger man already than you were.” “I’m a hefty brute for a growing child,” he smiled down at her. “You can take it smiling, though,” she approved. “It’s this modern flippancy,” he grinned. “A generation of scoffers. But you can’t get over Hepplestall’s by scoffing at it. I came up here to look down on it, and I’m only more aware than ever that it’s big. You--you’ve got your idea of me. It’s a nice idea, but it’s pure flattery.” “No.” “Oh, yes, it is, to-day. But it’s something to grow up to, and it’s worth while because it’s your idea. If this family gang of mine told me they believed in me I should know they were talking through their hats. They wouldn’t be believing in me, they’d be believing in who I am, they’d be believing in a tradition which declares that my father’s son must be up to standard. You’re different. You know me and they don’t, and you’ve brought me to Staithley. It’s your doing, and I want like hell not to let you down. Your idea of me’s not true. It’s too good to be true. But I mean to make it true.” Mary looked uphill to where, a hundred feet above them, the darkling rim of the Edge was silhouetted against the sky. “Staithley Edge,” she said, “and in my mind I was calling you a cheat.” She stooped to the bank by the road, she plucked coarse grass and held it to her lips. “Staithley Edge, will you forgive me? The dreams I’ve had of you, and then the shameful doubts and now the better than all dreaming that this is. I was going to build a house on Staithley Edge, and I have built a man.” “Of course,” said Rupert, “I knew you had a passion for hills.” “I never told you,” Mary said. “No. But I knew. This is a hill. It isn’t an Alp. It isn’t a mountain. It’s Staithley Edge. I wonder what they’re doing about houses in Staithley. I don’t want to rob any one, but I’d like a house up here.” “Rupert!” she cried. “It’s Aunt Gertrude, you know,” he seemed to apologize. “Poor old thing, she’s got the same bee in her bonnet that her nephew used to have. London. Well, William’s the Head and he ought to go on at the Hall, and if he does it should pacify Gertrude. I expect he’s going through it while we’re loafing up here. Shall we go and break the news to her that there’s no eviction on the program?” “Oh, my dear, there are a thousand things we haven’t said.” “There’s the point, for instance, that if I look down on Staithley Mills every morning from my bedroom I ought to feel less scared of them.”