Courtland was singing, joining his fine tenor in with the curious assembly and enjoying it.  Gila recalled him each time from a realm of the spirit, and he would earnestly give attention to what she said, bending his ear to listen, then look seriously at the person indicated, try to appreciate her amusement with a nod and absent smile, and go on singing again!  He was so absorbed in the gathering that her talk scarcely penetrated to his real soul.

If he had been trying to baffle Gila he could have used no more effective method, for the point of her jokes seemed blunted.  She turned her eyes at last to her escort and began to study him, astonishment and chagrin in her countenance.  Gradually both gave way to a kind of admiration and curiosity.  One could not look at Courtland and not admire.  The fine strength in his handsome young face and figure were always noticeable among a company anywhere, and here among these foreigners and wayfarers it was especially so.  She was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in his presence that was new to her.  Usually her attitude was to make others thrill at her presence!  No man before had caught her fancy and held it like this rare one.  What secret lay behind that grave strength of his that made him successfully resist those arts of hers that had readily lured other victims?

She watched him while he bowed his head in prayer, and noted how his rich, close-cut hair waved and crept about his temples; noted the curve of his chin and the curl of his lashes on his cheek.  More and more she coveted him.  And she must set herself to find and break this other power that had him in its clutches.  She perfectly recognized the fact that it was entirely possible that she would not care for him after the other power was broken, and that she might have to toss him aside after he was fully hers.  But what of that?  Had she not so tossed many a hapless soul that had come like a moth to singe his wings in her candle-flame, then laughed at him gaily as he lay writhing in his pain; and tossed after him, torn and trampled, his own ideals of womanhood, too; so that all other women might henceforth be blighted in his eyes.  Ah!  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.