The Witness | Page 9

said to her cousin when he told her how the
brilliant young athlete and intellectual star of the university had been
stung by the religious bug. "Send him to me. I'll take it out of him and
he'll never know it's gone."
Paul Courtland entered, unsuspecting. He had met Gila a number of
times before, at college dances and the games. He was not exactly
flattered, but decidedly pleased that she had sent for him. Her
brightness and seeming innocence had attracted him strongly.
The contrast from the hall with its blaze of electrics to the lurid light of
the library affected him strangely. He paused on the threshold and
passed his hand over his eyes. Gila stood where the ruby light of hearth
and lamp would set her vivid dress on fire and light the jewels at her
throat and hair. She knew her clear skin, dark hair, and eyes would bear
the startling contrast, and how her white shoulders gleamed from the
crimson velvet. She knew how to arrange the flaming scarf of gauze
deftly about those white shoulders so that it would reveal more than it
concealed.
The young man lingered unaccountably. He had a sense of leaving
something behind him. Almost he hesitated as she came forward to
greet him, and looked back as if to rid himself of some obligation. Then
she put her bits of confiding hands out to him and smiled that wistful,
engaging smile that would have been worth a fortune on the screen.
He thrilled with wonder over her delicate, dazzling beauty; and felt the
luxury of the room about him, responding to its lure.

"So dandy of you to come to me when you are so busy after your long
illness." Her voice was soft and confiding, its cadences like soothing
music. She motioned him to a chair. "You see, I wanted to have you all
to myself for a little while, just to tell you how perfectly fine you were
at that awful fire."
She dropped upon the couch drawn out at just the right angle from the
fire and settled among the cushions gracefully. The flicker of the
firelight played upon the jeweled combs and gleamed at her throat. The
little pointed slippers cozily crossed looked innocent enough to have
been meant for the golden street. Her eyes looked up into his with that
confiding lure that thrills and thrills again.
Her voice dropped softer, and she turned half away and gazed
pensively into the fire on the hearth. "I wouldn't let them talk to me
about it. It seemed so awful. And you were so strong and great."
"It was nothing!" He did not want to talk about the fire. There was
something incongruous, almost unholy, in having it discussed here. It
jangled on his nerves. For there in front of him in the fireplace burned a
mimic pit like the one into which the martyr Steve had fallen; and there
before him on the couch sat the girl! What was there so familiar about
her? Ah! now he knew. The Scarlet Woman! Her gown was an exact
reproduction of the one the great actress had worn on the stage that
night. He was conscious of wishing to sit beside her on that couch and
revel in the ravishing color of her. What was there about this room that
made all his pulses beat?
Playfully, skilfully, she led him on. They talked of the dances and
games, little gossip of the university, with now and then a telling
personality, and a sweep of long lashes over pearly cheeks, or a lifting
of great, innocent eyes of admiration to his face.
She offered wine in delicate gold-incrusted ruby glasses, but Courtland
did not drink. He scarcely noticed her veiled annoyance at his refusal.
He was drinking in the wine of her presence. She suggested that he
smoke, and would not have hesitated to join him, perhaps, but he told
her he was in training, and she cooed softly of his wonderful strength of

character in resisting.
By this time he was in the coveted seat beside her on the couch, and the
fire burned low and red. They had ceased to talk of games and dances.
They were talking of each other, those intimate nothings that mean a
breaking down of distance and a rapidly growing familiarity.
The young man was aware of the fascination of the small figure in her
crimson robings, sitting so demurely in the firelight, the gauzy scarf
dropped away from her white neck and shoulders, the lovely curve of
her baby cheek and tempting neck showing against the background of
the shadows behind her. He was aware of a distinct longing to take her
in his arms and crush her to him, as he would