The music was not uplifting.  It was well done by a paid choir, who had good voices and sang wonderful music, but they had no heart in their singing.  The congregation attempted no more than a murmur of the hymns.  There was not a large congregation.

The sermon was a dissertation on the Book of Jonah, a sort of resume of all the argument, on both sides, that has torn the theological world in these latter days.  Not a word of Stephen Marshall’s Christ, save a sort of side reference to a verse about Jonah being three days and three nights in the whale, and the Son of Man being three days in the heart of the earth.  Courtland wasn’t even sure that this reference meant the Christ, and it never entered his head that it touched at the heart of the great doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.  As far as he could understand the reverend gentleman the arguments he quoted against the Book of Jonah were far stronger and more plausible than those put forth in its defense.  What was it all about, anyway?  What did it matter whether Jonah was or was not, or whether anybody accepted the book?  How could a thing like that affect the life of a man?

Tennelly watched the expressive face beside him and decided that perhaps Bill Ward had been half right, after all.

On their way back to the university they met Gila Dare.  Gila all in gray like a dove, gray suit of soft, rich cloth, gray furs of the depth and richness of smoke, gray suede boots laced high to meet her brief gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks.  Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby’s, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in her little gloved hand.

“Who’s that?” growled Tennelly, admiringly, when they had passed a suitable distance.

“Why, that’s Bill Ward’s cousin, Gila Dare,” announced Courtland, graciously.  He was still basking in the pleasure of her smile, and thinking how different she looked from last evening in this soft, gray, silvery effect.  Yes, he had misjudged her.  A girl who could look like that must be sweet and pure and unspoiled.  It had been that unfortunate dress last night that had reminded him unpleasantly of the scarlet woman and the awful night of the fire.  If he ever got well enough acquainted he would ask her never to wear red again; it made her appear sensual; and even she, delicate and sweet as she was, could not afford to cast a thought like that into the minds of her beholders.  It was then he began to idealize Gila.

“Gila Dare!” Tennelly straightened up and took notice.  So that was the invincible Gila!  That little soft-eyed exquisite thing with the hair like a midnight cloud.

“Some looker!” he commented, approvingly, and wished he were in Courtland’s shoes.

“She’s got in her work all right,” he commented to himself.  “Old Court’s fallen already.  Guess I’ll have to buy a straw hat, it’ll be more edible.”