"How does it happen that the strata are the same?" Nathaniel looked at him sharply from under bushy gray eyebrows. He turned again to the paper, and continued the two lines until they met, high above what was now Adamsville. "Wait.... This point is the sand hills,--there to the east. There are more of them beyond the West Highlands range. See,----" and a firm stroke of the pencil continued their lines until they arched above the former peak. Pelham watched the moving pencil, fascinated. "Was the mountain ever like that?" "The rocks are absolute proof. This valley,"--he gestured toward the city,--"was once the hidden center of the hill." "... How long ago?" Nathaniel chuckled gently. "Ah, that's beyond us. Hundreds of thousands of years, maybe." Somehow this made the mountain more real to Pelham. Though he might climb, under the midnight stars, to the highest crag on Crenshaw Hill, he was just at the beginning of what had once been the peak. He fancied he could trace its towering crown, blacker than the surrounding blackness, lifting up to the sky and the sparkling stars. What a fleeting second of time, to the mountain, were the eighteen laborious years that meant so much to him! This hill would continue to jut toward the clouds when the last trace of man's restless activity had crumbled into dusty forgetfulness. He formed the habit of circling up to these crags, after a night at the club or the park with Virginia. They supplied the needed solitude for his crammed fancies. Some nights, after he had been with her, his body would burn like a torch. The pelting passion that shivered throughout him frightened him. He needed the mountain and the stars to calm him for bed. Love was becoming an overmastering torrent; it threatened to upset his whole equilibrium. His father got wind of the affair, through some chance comment. He went straight to the point with the boy. "You're seeing a lot of that Moore girl, Pelham." "Yes, sir.... I like her." "L. N. Moore has four daughters, all unmarried. He is worth about twenty-five thousand dollars. That's all they will get." "I--I hadn't ever thought about that, father." "You've got to think about it. Here Tom Dodge's children have married millions--every one of them. Sarah married Jack Lamar; he owns the steel works. The boys connected with the Vanderventer and the O'Ryan money. There's an intelligent family." Pelham got hot all over. He muttered something about not marrying for money. "Who wants you to marry for money?" his father interrupted. "The Dodge crowd managed to fall in love with folks who had money. It's a big difference. I'm going to leave the girls well fixed; they ought to marry well. I want you to keep your eyes open." The talk left a bad taste in Pelham's mouth. Even though his mother did not care for Virginia as much as he had thought she would, his attentions continued until vacation ended, and he returned to the muggy northern city.