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.

"That is what _I_ call being simple," she went on briskly. "If you think
we can be that in New York, let us live there. _I_ could be simple there,
but not with you, sir! That terrible East Side would be shaking its gory
locks at us. We should feel that we did it--or you would! Then good-by to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"

"You are my life, liberty, and happiness, and I will be your almoner,"
said Paul, "and dispense you"--

"Dispense _with_ me!" laughed the girl. "And what shall I be doing while
you are dispensing me on the East Side? New York has other sides. While
you go slumming with the Seraph, I shall be talking to the Snake! Now,
_do_ laugh!" she entreated childishly, turning her sparkling face to his.

"Am I expected to laugh at that?"