! What of that,
so that unquenchable flame in her soul, that restlessly pursued and
conquered and cast aside, might be satisfied? Was that not what women
were made for, to conquer men and toss them away? If they did not would
not men conquer them and toss them away? She was but fulfilling her
womanhood as she had been taught to look upon it.

But there was something puzzling about Courtland that interested her
deeply. She was not sure but it was half his charm. He really seemed to
_want_ to be good, to _desire_ to resist evil. Most of the other men
she knew had been all too ready to fall as lightly with as little
earnestness as she into whatever doubtful paths her dainty feet had
chanced to lead. Many of them would have led further than she would go,
for she had her own limitations and conventions, strange as it may seem.

So Gila sat and meditated, with a strange, sweet thrill in the thought
of a new experience; for, young as she was, she had found the pleasures
of her existence pall upon her many times.

Suddenly her ear was caught by the sermon. The ugly little man in the
pulpit, with the strange eyes that seemed to look through you, was
telling a story of a garden, with One calling, and a pair of naked souls
guilty and in fear before Him. It was as though she had been one of
them! What right had he to flaunt such truths before a congregation?

She was not familiar enough with Bible truths to know where he got the
story. It did not seem a story. It was just her Eden where she walked
and ate what fruit she might desire every day without a thought of any
command that might have been issued. She recognized no commands. What
right had God to command her? The serpent had whispered early to her,
"Thou shalt not surely die." Her only question was ever whether the
fruit was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one
wise. Till now there had been no Lord God walking in her garden in the
cool of the day. Only her mother, and she was easy to evade. She had
never been really afraid, nor felt her little soul naked till now, with
the ugly little man's bright brown eyes upon her, and his words
shivering through her like winds about the unprotected. Hideous things
she had forgotten flung into view and challenged her; and somewhere in
the room there seemed to be One who dared to call her to account. She
looked fiercely back to the speaker, her delicate brows drawn darkly,
her great blue-black eyes fierce in their in