| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I | No Place for Sentiment | [1] |
| II | “Why?” | [9] |
| III | The Change in the Rector’s Eyes | [22] |
| IV | Too Many Men | [35] |
| V | Edward E. Allison Takes a Vacation | [47] |
| VI | The Impulsive Young Man From Home | [59] |
| VII | They Had Already Spoiled Her! | [70] |
| VIII | Still Piecing Out the World | [80] |
| IX | The Mine for the Golden Altar | [88] |
| X | The Storm Center of Magnetic Attraction | [98] |
| XI | “Gentlemen, There is Your Empire!” | [111] |
| XII | Gail Solves the Problem of Vedder Court | [123] |
| XIII | The Survival of the Fittest | [135] |
| XIV | The Free and Entirely Uncurbed | [150] |
| XV | But Why Was She Lonesome? | [158] |
| XVI | Gail at Home | [167] |
| XVII | Something Happens to Gerald Fosland | [178] |
| XVIII | The Message from New York | [187] |
| XIX | The Rector Knows | [199] |
| XX | The Breed of Gail | [212] |
| XXI | The Public is Aroused | [221] |
| XXII | The Rev. Smith Boyd Protests | [231] |
| XXIII | A Series of Gaieties | [240] |
| XXIV | The Maker of Maps | [250] |
| XXV | A Question of Eugenics | [262] |
| XXVI | An Empire and an Empress | [271] |
| XXVII | Allison’s Private and Particular Devil | [281] |
| XXVIII | Love | [289] |
| XXIX | Gail First! | [299] |
| XXX | The Flutter of a Sheet of Music | [309] |
| XXXI | Gail Breaks a Promise | [315] |
| XXXII | Gerald Fosland Makes a Speech | [325] |
| XXXIII | Chicken, or Steak? | [334] |
| XXXIV | A Matter of Conscience | [344] |
| XXXV | A Vestry Meeting | [353] |
| XXXVI | Hand in Hand | [362] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| For an instant the brown eyes and the blue ones met | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
|---|---|
| At 7:15 Ephraim found him at the end of the table in the midst of some neat and intricate tabulations | [51] |
| She was glad to be alone, to rescue herself from the whirl of anger and indignation and humiliation which had swept around her | [109] |
| She telephoned that she was going to remain with Allison; and they enjoyed a two hour chat of many things | [278] |
The Ball of Fire
CHAPTER I
NO PLACE FOR SENTIMENT
Silence pervaded the dim old aisles of Market Square Church; a silence which seemed to be palpable; a solemn hush which wavered, like the ghostly echoes of anthems long forgotten, among the slender columns and the high arches and the delicate tracery of the groining; the winter sun, streaming through the clerestory windows, cast, on the floor and on the vacant benches, patches of ruby and of sapphire, of emerald and of topaz, these seeming only to accentuate the dimness and the silence.
A thin, wavering, treble note, so delicate that it seemed like a mere invisible cobweb of a tone, stole out of the organ loft and went pulsing up amid the dim arches. It grew in volume; it added a diapason; a deep, soft bass joined it, and then, subdued, but throbbing with the passion of a lost soul, it swelled into one of the noble preludes of Bach. The organ rose in a mighty crescendo to a peal which shook the very edifice; then it stopped with an abruptness which was uncanny, so much so that the silence which ensued was oppressive. In that silence the vestry door creaked, it opened wide, and it was as if a vision had suddenly been set there! Framed in the dark doorway against the background of the sun-flooded vestry, bathed in the golden light from the transept window, brown-haired, brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked, stood a girl who might have been one of the slender stained-glass virgins come to life, the golden light flaming the edges of her hair into an oriole. She stood timidly, peering into the dimness, and on her beautifully curved lips was a half questioning smile.
“Uncle Jim,” she called, and there was some quality in her low voice which was strangely attractive; and disturbing.
“By George, Gail, I forgot that you were to come for me!” said Jim Sargent, rising from amid the group of men in the dim transept. “The decorators drove us out of the vestry.”
“They drove me out, too,” laughed the vision, stepping from her frame.