You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue--to be, sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men.

Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud--a missile that should never have reached you--and straight you drop to the ground.

It hurts me," said Ralph audaciously, "hurts me as if I had fallen myself!" The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion's face.

"I don't understand you in the least," she repeated.

"You say you amused yourself with a project for my career--I don't understand that.
Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you're doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head.