“Tell him she doesn’t care for him,” said the truthful Rosamund.
The Colonel paused by the table, looking down and jingling the loose silver in his pockets.
“No,” he said, “I’m not going to tell him that. That would be harder on Rion than on most men. Women, you know, change. June’s very young. She’s still a child in many things.”
“She isn’t the same sort of child she was two months ago,” said Rosamund sadly.
“No, but she’s young in years—only twenty-one. Dear girl, that’s a baby. Your mother was older than that when I knew her, and—and—she changed.”
“How changed?” Rosamund asked with some curiosity.
“Her heart changed. She—other men cared for her before your father came along. She once cared for one of them.”
The Colonel paused and cleared his throat.
“Mother was engaged to some one else before father. She told me so once, but she didn’t say who.”
“Well, there was no doubt of her second love being deep. In fact, it was the deeper of the two.”