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 his name with the accent that is sure of quick response.

It was so he remembered what he had come to tell Gila.  Looking down to that exquisite bit of humanity almost within his embrace, a great tenderness for her, and longing, came over him, to make her know now all that the Presence was becoming to him.

“Gila,” he whispered, and his voice was full of thrill.  “Let’s sit down awhile!  There is something I want to tell you!”

Instantly she responded, lifting great innocent eyes, with one quick sweep, to his face, so moved and tender; and gliding toward the couch where they might sit together, settling down on it, almost nestling to him, then remembering and drawing away shyly to more perfectly play her part.  She thought she knew what he was going to say.  She thought she saw the love-light in his eyes, and it was so dazzling it almost blinded her.  It frightened her a little, too, like the light in no lover’s eyes that had ever drawn her down to whisper love to her before.  She wondered if it was because she really cared herself so much now that it seemed so different.

But he did not take her in his arms as she had expected he would do; though he sat quite near, and spoke in a low, privileged tone, as one would do who had the right.  His arm was across the back of the couch behind her; he sat sideways, turned toward her, and he still touched reverently the little hand he had been holding as they danced together.