Women, who are timid by nature, and who, combined with that weakness, have an overmastering desire to be loved and approved of, are of the stuff of which the most proficient liars can be made. Had June, in childhood, been intimidated or roughly treated she would have grown up a fluent and facile perverter of the truth. The tender influences of a home where love and confidence dwelt had never made it necessary for her to wish to conceal her actions or protect herself, and she had grown to womanhood frank, candid and truthful. Now, however, she found herself drawn into a situation where, if she were to continue in the course that gave her the happiness she had spoken of, she must certainly cease to be open, even begin to indulge in small duplicities. It was with a sensation of shamed guilt that she answered carelessly:
“No, not often. Now and then I have.”
“Rosamund says he doesn’t come to the house as much as he used.”
This was in the form of a question, too.
“Doesn’t he? I haven’t noticed much.”
Her heart accelerated its beats and she felt suddenly unhappy, as she realized that she was misleading a person especially dear to her.
“I’m glad of that, Junie dear. I don’t like him to be hanging round you. He’s not the man to be your friend.”
June began to experience a sense of misery.
“What are you down on him for?” she said. “I like him. I like him a great deal.”
It seemed to her that by thus openly voicing her predilection for Barclay she, in some way or other, atoned for her previous prevarications.