“Like him a great deal?” repeated the Colonel, staring somberly at her. “What does that mean?”
She was instantly alarmed and sought to obliterate the effect of her words.
“Oh, I like him very much. I think he’s interesting and handsome, and—and—and—very nice. Just that way.”
Nothing could have sounded more innocently tame. The simple man beside her, who had loved but one woman and known the honest friendship of others as uncomplex as himself, was relieved.
“Barclay’s not the man for a good girl to be friends with,” he continued with more assurance of tone. “He’s all that you say, handsome, and well educated, and a smooth talker and all that. But his record is not the kind a man likes. He’s done things that are not what a decent man does. I can’t tell you. I can’t talk to you about it. But rely on me. I’m right.”
“I know all about it,” she answered, turning round and looking calmly at him.
“All about it!—about what?”—he stammered, completely taken aback.
“About that hateful story of Mrs. Newbury.”
The Colonel’s face reddened slightly. He had the traditional masculine idea of the young girl as a being of transparent ignorance, off which the wickedness of the world glanced as bird-shot off the surface of a crystal ball. Now he was pained and shocked, not only that June should have heard the story but that she should thus coolly allude to it.
“Then if you’ve heard it,” he said almost coldly, “you should know without my telling you that Jerry Barclay’s no man for you to know, or walk with, or have any acquaintance with.”