ectly dreadful! I think
that is irreverent!"

"Irreverent?"

"Yes! Very irreverent!" said Gila, piously. "And a man like that is
profaning holy things. If you really care for religious things you ought
to come to my church, where everything is quiet and orderly and where
there are decent people. Why, those people there to-night looked as if
they might all be thieves and murderers! And outlandish! My soul! I
never saw anything like it! Some of their things must have come out of
the Ark! Did you see that girl with the tight green skirt? Imagine it! A
whole year and a half out of date! I think it is immodest to wear
things when they get out of style like that! And the idea of that man
daring to talk to that kind of people about God coming down to live with
them! I think it was the limit! As if God cared anything about people of
that sort! I think that man ought to be arrested, putting notions into
poor people's heads! It's just such talk as that that makes riots and
things. My father says so! Getting common, stupid people all worked up
about things they can't understand. I think it's wicked!"

Gila raved all the way home. Courtland, for the most part, let her talk
and was silent.

Seated finally in the library, for he could not go away yet, somehow.
There was something he must ask her. He turned to her, calling her for
the first time by her name:

"But, Gila, you said you felt a Presence. What did you mean?"

Gila was silent. The tumult in her face subsided.

She dropped her lashes and played with the frill on the wrist of the
long chiffon sleeve of her blouse. Her eyes beneath their concealing
lashes kindled. Her mouth grew sweet and sensitive, her whole attitude
became shy and alluring. She sat and drooped before the fire, casting
now and then a wide, shy, innocent look up, her face half turned away.

"Does she look adown her apron!" floated the words through his brain.
Ah! Here at last was the Gila he had been seeking! The Gila who would
understand!

"Tell me, Gila!" he said, in an eager, low appeal.

She stirred softly, drooped a little more toward him, her face turned
away till only the charming profile showed against the rich darkness of
a crimson curtain. Now at last he was coming to it!

"It was--_you_--I meant!" she breathed softly.

He sat up sharply. There was subtle flattery in her tone. He could not
fail to be stirred by it.

"Me!" he said, almost sternly. "I don't understand!" but his voice wa