"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?" Mr. Hayes of New York smiled. "Say _because_ of that. We only ask to believe every one _is_ a fool!" "Only you haven't been, without reassurance, able to imagine fools of the size that my case demands?" And Gedge had a pause while, as if on the chance of some proof, his companion waited. "Well, I won't pretend to you that your anxiety hasn't made me, doesn't threaten to make me, a bit nervous; though I don't quite understand it if, as you say, people but rave about me." "Oh _that_ report was from the other side; people in our country so very easily rave. You've seen small children laugh to shrieks when tickled in a new place. So there are amiable millions with us who are but small shrieking children. They perpetually present new places for the tickler. What we've seen in further lights," Mr. Hayes good-humouredly pursued, "is your people _here_--the Committee, the Board, or whatever the powers to whom you're responsible." "Call them my friend Grant-Jackson then--my original backer, though I admit for that reason perhaps my most formidable critic. It's with him practically I deal; or rather it's by him I'm dealt with--_was_ dealt with before. I stand or fall by him. But he has given me my head." "Mayn't he then want you," Mrs. Hayes inquired, "just to show as flagrantly running away?" "Of course--I see what you mean. I'm riding, blindly, for a fall, and They're watching (to be tender of me!) for the smash that may come of itself. It's Machiavellic--but everything's possible. And what did you just now mean," Gedge asked--"especially if you've only heard of my prosperity--by your 'further lights'?" His friends for an instant looked embarrassed, but Mr. Hayes came to the point. "We've heard of your prosperity, but we've also, remember, within a few minutes, heard _you_." "I was determined you _should_," said Gedge. "I'm good then--but I overdo?" His strained grin was still sceptical. Thus challenged, at any rate, his visitor pronounced. "Well, if you don't; if at the end of six months more it's clear that you haven't overdone; then, _then_----" "Then what?" "Then it's great." "But it _is_ great--greater than anything of the sort ever was. I overdo, thank goodness, yes; or I would if it were a thing you _could_." "Oh well, if there's _proof_ that you can't----!" With which and an expressive gesture Mr. Hayes threw up his fears. His wife, however, for a moment seemed unable to let them go. "Don't They want then _any_ truth?--none even for the mere look of it?" "The look of it," said Morris Gedge, "is what I give!"