lusion would ever come to him! The glamour was
about Gila to-night and no mistake! He looked at her with his heart in
his eyes, and she drooped her lashes to hide a glint of triumph, knowing
she had chosen her setting aright at last. Softly, dreamily, pleasantly,
in the back of her mind floated the Capitol of the nation, and herself
standing amid admiring throngs receiving homage. She was going to
succeed. She had achieved her first triumph with the look in Courtland's
eyes. She would be able to carry out Mr. Ramsey Thomas's commission and
win Courtland to anything that would forward ambitious hopes for him!
She was sure of it!

The very important business about which she had wished to see Courtland
was to ask him if he would be her partner in a bazaar and pageant that
was shortly to be given for some charitable purpose by the society folks
with whom she companioned. She wanted Courtland to march with her, and
to consult him about the characters they should choose and the costumes
they should wear.

As if she had been a child desiring him to play with her, he yielded to
her mood, watching her all the time with delighted eyes, that anything
so exquisite and lovely should stoop to sue for his favor. Of course he
would be her partner! He entered into the arrangements with a zest,
though he let her do all the planning, and heeded little what character
she had chosen for him, or what costume, so she was pleased. Indeed, his
part in the matter seemed of little moment so he might go with her--his
sweet, shy, lovely maiden! For so she seemed to him that night! A
perfect Solveig!

The reason for the little slippers became apparent later, when she
insisted upon teaching him the dancing-steps that were to be used in a
final splendid assembly after the pageant. There was intoxication in the
delight of moving with her through the dreamy steps to the music of the
expensive Victrola she set going. Just to watch her little feet like
fairies for lightness and grace; to touch her small, warm hand; to be so
near those down-drooping lashes; to feel her breath on his hand; to
think of her as trusting her lovely little self to him--made him almost
deliriously happy. And she, with her drooping lashes, her delicate way
of barely touching his arm, her utter seeming unconsciousness of his
presence, was so exquisite and pure and lovely to-night! She did not
dream, of course, of how she made his pulses thrill and how he was
longing to gather he