"No—since you do ask. She fears at least that I go too far; she doesn't believe in my margin. You see we had our scare after your visit. They came down."
His friends were all interest. "Ah! They came down?"
"Heavy. They brought me down. That's why—"
"Why you are down?" Mrs. Hayes sweetly demanded.
"Ah but my dear man," her husband interposed, "you're not down; you're up! You're only up a different tree, but you're up at the tip-top."
"You mean I take it too high?"
"That's exactly the question," the young man answered; "and the possibility, as matching your first danger, is just what we felt we couldn't, if you didn't mind, miss the measure of."
Gedge gazed at him. "I feel that I know what you at bottom hoped."
"We at bottom 'hope,' surely, that you're all right?"
"In spite of the fool it makes of every one?"