The colonel had the feelings of a man as well as a father. He went back to his letter with a softened look in his face. He had said too much; he always did--to Annie; and now he must hedge a little or she would think there was trouble brewing, and that he was going to be nasty about Moya's choice. III THE INITIAL LOVE “Let us be simple! Not every one can be, but we can. We can afford to be, and we know how!” Moya was speaking rapidly, in her singularly articulate tones. A reader of voices would have pronounced hers the physical record of unbroken health and constant, joyous poise. “Hear the word of your prophet Emerson!” she brought a little fist down upon her knee for emphasis, a hand several sizes larger closed upon it and held it fast. “Hear the word--are you listening? 'Only _two_ in the Garden walked and with Snake and Seraph talked.'” The young man's answer was an instant's impassioned silence. Too close it touched him, that vital image of the Garden. Then, with an effect of sternness, he said,-- “Have we the right to do as we please? Have we the courage that comes of right to cut ourselves off from all those calls and cries for help?” “_I_ have,” said the girl; “I have just that right--of one who knows exactly what she wants, and is going to get it if she can!” He laughed at her happy insolence, with which all the youth and nature in him made common cause. “I shouldn't mind thinking about your Poor Man,” she tripped along, “if he liked being poor, or if it seemed to improve him any; or if it were only now and then. But there is so dreadfully much of him! Once we begin, how should we ever think about anything else? He'd rise up and sit down with us, and eat and drink with us, and tell us what to wear. Every pleasure of our lives would be spoiled with his eternal 'Where do _I_ come in?' It was simple enough in _that_ garden, with only those two and nobody outside to feel injured. But we are those two, aren't we? Isn't everybody--once in a life, and once only?” She turned her face aside, slighting by her manner the excessive meaning of her words. “I ask for myself only what I think I have a right to give you--my absolute undivided attention for those first few years. They say it never lasts!” she hastened to add with playful cynicism. Young Bogardus seemed incapable under the circumstances of any adequate reply. Free as they were in words, there was an extreme personal shyness between these proud young persons, undeveloped on the side of passion and better versed in theories of life than in life itself. They had separated the day after their sudden engagement, and their nearest approaches to intimacy had been through letters. Naturally the girl was the bolder, having less in herself to fear.