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