“Oh, the future!”--she made a sweeping gesture of scorn--“the future’s so far away no one knows anything about it. It’s all secrets. Let’s not bother with it. The present’s enough.” Her hand, as she held it up in front of her, suddenly caught her eye and fixed her attention. “Look at my hands,” she said. “They’re getting quite white and ladylike. They’re losing their look of honest toil, aren’t they? How I’ve hated it!” He held out his big palm and she placed her left hand, which was nearest him, in it. Her hands were small, the skin beautifully fine and delicate, but they showed the hard labor of the past in a blunting and broadening of the finger-tips. The Colonel looked at the little one lying in his. “I don’t see that there’s anything the matter with them,” he said. “This one only wants one more thing.” “What’s that?” “A ring.” This time June was caught. “A ring?” she said. “Well, I have several, but they’re not very pretty, and I thought I’d wait till father gave me a really handsome one.” “I don’t mean a handsome one. I mean a plain, little gold one; just a band and worn on this finger.” He designated the third finger. June understood. “Oh, Uncle Jim!” she said, trying to pull her hand away, blushing and rebellious. The Colonel held it tight, feeling the opportunity too valuable to be trifled with. “And Rion Gracey to put it on,” he added. Her answer came almost angrily as she turned away her face. “Not for a moment.” “No, for a lifetime.” There was no reply and the Colonel loosed her hand. She pushed it back into her glove saying nothing. As she began to fasten the buttons he said: “Do you often meet Barclay when you are out walking, as you did this afternoon?” 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.”