“Oh, yes, I care and if I cared cheaply, I should thank you for being my propagandist. I should thank you for making me popular because you are popular and I’m your husband. You can’t deny there’s that in it, Mary, but there’s more. There’s the bridging of a gulf. There’s a breach made in a bad tradition. We Hepple-stalls must drop being Olympian. Aloofness; that’s to go and it’ll get a shove when Lady Hepplestall is seen on the screen in Staithley. What do a thousand Gertrudes matter if we can bridge the gulf? We’ve got to get together, we’ve got to reach those men who hissed. Do you see that cinema as a cheap way? I don’t. It’s a modern way if you like and it isn’t a way I made but one you made for me. It’s a reach-me-down, and I shan’t stop at ways that are ready-made. I’ll find my own. Up on the Edge I asked what I would add to Hepplestall’s. I’ll add this if I can--I’ll add humanity.” “And I can help. Music, for instance.” “You’ll make me jealous soon. You have so many advantages of me. I’m not even sure if I’m good enough for Lancashire League cricket. It’s good stuff, I can tell you. Whereas you...” “Am I to manage Staithley Mills?” “Nor I, for years. Never, if I’m unequal to it. But you’re right. The mills are the important thing, the rest’s decoration and decoration won’t go far. Staithley won’t stand you and me as Lady and Lord Bountiful. Those hissing friends of ours--circuses won’t satisfy them and I’d think the worse of them if they would. I’ll talk to William to-night and I expect he’ll snap my head off. He’s of the old gang, William is. There’s the war between William and me, but, Lord, he’ll know, he’ll know it all and I know nothing. I’m so young.” “Yes,” said Mary, “and you’ll stay young, please. You’ll keep your hope, my faith, your youth.” “I’m young all right,” he said. “Listen to me if you doubt it. ‘I’ll add humanity.’ Did I say that? With a voice beautifully vibrant with earnestness? Young enough to be capable of anything. But I will add it,” he finished as he drew up at the door of the Hall. Hope burnished them as they came into the old home of the Hepplestalls; they were the keepers of a great light lit on Staithley Edge; they had a radiance which seemed to Gertrude a personal affront to her chatelainship. They came with the insolence of conquerors into the somber scene of her defeat, but she was on guard against revealing her feelings to the actress woman who was Lady Hepplestall. She had failed, she was doomed to Staithley, she had to explain away to her friend the letter she had written announcing that she was coming to live in London, she was to be evicted from the Hall by a saucy baggage out of a musical comedy; but even if the baggage proved as bad as her worst anticipations she would not lower to her by the fraction of an inch her flag of resolutely suave politeness.