“You can believe just what you like, dear,” he said after a moment’s pause, “it’s the privilege of your sex. But this time you’d better quit believing and be guided by me.” “Why, Uncle Jim,” she said leaning eagerly toward him, “I’m not a fool or a child any more. Can’t I come to conclusions about people that may be right? I know Mr. Barclay well, not for as long as you have, but I shouldn’t be surprised if I knew him a great deal better. We saw him so often and so intimately up at Foleys, and he couldn’t be the kind of a man he is and be mixed up in such horrible scandals. It’s impossible. He’s a gentleman, he’s a man of honor.” “Yes,” nodded the Colonel, looking at the shrubs in front of him, “that’s just what he’d say he was if you asked him.” “And it would be right. He’s not capable of doing dishonorable things. He’s above it. Rosamund thinks so, too.” “Oh, does she?” said the Colonel. If he had not been so suddenly stricken with worry and foreboding he could not have forborne a smile at this citing of Rosamund as a court of last resort. “Yes, Rosamund said she couldn’t believe it either. If you knew him as we do you’d understand better. It’s all lies. People are always talking scandal in this place--I’ve heard more since I came here than I heard in the whole of my life before. It’s a dreadful thing, I think, to take away a man’s character just for the fun of talking.” She had spoken rapidly and now paused with an air of suspended interest, which was intensified by her expression of eager questioning. The Colonel looked at her. In a dim way she was struck, as she had been before, by the intense melancholy of his eyes--sad old eyes--that told of a life unfulfilled, devastated, at its highest point of promise. “June, dear,” he said in a low voice, “you’re not in love with this man?” The color ran over her face to the hair on her forehead. The directness of the question had shocked her young girl’s delicacy and pride. She tried to laugh, and then with her eyes down-drooped, said in a voice of hurried embarrassment: “No, of course not.” He smiled in a sudden expansion of relief. All was well again. In his simplicity of heart it did not occur to him to doubt her. CHAPTER IV DANGER SIGNALS Jerome Barclay lived with his mother in a new house on Taylor Street, near Jackson. They had only been there a short time. Before that South Park had been their home. But within the last year or two the fortunes of South Park had shown symptoms of decline, and when this happened Mrs. Simeon Barclay had felt that she must move.