r into his arms and tell her how lovely she was.
Afterward he was never quite sure what kept him from doing it. He
thought at the time it was herself, a sort of wall of purity and
loveliness that surrounded her and made her sacred, so that he felt he
must go slowly, must not startle her nor make her afraid of him. It
never occurred to him that the wall might be surrounding himself. He had
entirely forgotten that first visit to Gila in the Mephistophelian
garments, with the red light filling all the unholy atmosphere. There
had never been so much as a hint of a red light in the room since he
said he did not like it. The lamp-shade seemed to have disappeared. In
its place was a great wrought-metal thing of old silver jeweled with
opalescent medallions.

But it was part of the deliberate intention of Gila to lead him on and
yet hold him at a distance. She had read him aright. He was a man with
an old-fashioned ideal of woman, and the citadel of his heart was only
to be taken by such a woman. Therefore, she would be such a woman until
she had won. After that? What mattered it? Let time plan the issue! She
would have attained her desire!

But the down-drooping lashes hid no unconscious sweetness. There was
sinister gleam in those eyes as she looked at herself over his shoulder
when they passed the great mirror set in a cabinet door. There was
deliberate intention in the way the little hand lay lightly in the
strong one. There was not a movement of the dreamy dance she was
teaching him, not a touch of the little satin slipper, that did not have
its nicely calculated intention to draw him on. The sooner she could
make him yield and crush her to him, the sooner he declared his passion
for her, that much nearer would her ambitions be to their fulfilment.
Yet she must be very sure that she had him close in her toils before she
discovered to him her purpose.

So the little blue Puritan-like spider threw her silver gossamer web
about him, tangling more and more his big, fine manly heart, and
flinging diamond dust, and powder made of charms and incantations, in
his eyes to blind him. But as yet she knew not of the Presence that was
now his constant companion.

They had danced for some time, floating about in the pure delight of the
motion together, and the nearness of each another, when it seemed to
Courtland as if of a sudden a cooling hand was laid on his feverish brow
and a calm came to his spirit like a beloved voice calling