They had reached the gate now, and as Joost held it open for her to pass through, she saw that he had blushed to the ears at the lightly spoken words—if he had been in her room last night; the impropriety of them to him was evident. For a moment she blushed, too, then she recovered herself and grew impatient with one so artificial—and yet so simple, so self-conscious—and yet so unconscious, so desperately stupid—and yet so uncomfortably clear-sighted.



CHAPTER V

THE EXCURSION

The following Monday was fine and warm, and since the whole previous week had also been fine and warm, Mevrouw thought they might venture to make the talked-of excursion. Messages were accordingly sent to the Snieders, and from the Snieders back again, and after a wonderful amount of talk and arranging, everything was settled. Dinner was a little early that day, and a little hurried, though, since the carriage was not to come till after five o'clock, there was perhaps not much need for that. However, it is not every day in the week one makes an excursion, so naturally things cannot be expected to go quite as usual when such an event occurs.

The carriage came, Mevrouw had been waiting ten minutes, and three times been to see why Julia was not waiting with her. At the sound of wheels Julia came out; she had just finished washing the glasses (which she had been told not to touch, as there was certainly no time). She was quite ready, but Mevrouw at that moment discovered that she had the wrong sunshade. Julia fetched the right one and carried it out for the old lady; also an umbrella with a bow on the handle, a mackintosh, a shawl, and a large basket. Mijnheer came from the office with his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a minute later Joost also came to say good-bye; even the maidservant came from the kitchen to see them start.

The carriage drew up; it was a strange-looking vehicle, in shape something between a hearse and an ark on wheels, but with the greater part of the sides open to the air. Vrouw Snieder and her two daughters were already within, with their bow-trimmed umbrellas, sunshades, mackintoshes, shawls and basket. There was necessarily a good deal of greeting; Mijnheer and Joost shook hands with all the three ladies, and inquired after Herr Snieder, and received polite inquiries in return. Then Denah insisted on getting out, so that Mevrouw should be better able to get in; also to show that she was athletic and agile, like an English girl, and thought nothing of getting in and out of a high carriage. Mevrouw kissed her husband and son, twice each, very loud, called a good-bye to the servant, and got in. Julia shook hands, said good-bye, and also got in. Denah watched her, and observed the shape of her feet and ankles jealously. She glanced sharply at Joost, but he was not guilty of such indecorum as even thinking about any girl's legs, so, having said her good-bye, she got in reassured. Finally they drove away amid wishes for a safe drive and a pleasant excursion.

Of course there was a little settling to do inside the carriage, the wraps and baskets to be disposed of, and each person to be assured that the others had enough room, and just the place they preferred to any other. By the time that was done they stopped again at the house of Mijnheer's head clerk; here they were to take up two children, girls of fourteen and fifteen, who had been invited to come with the party. The carriage was not kept waiting, the children were out before it had fairly stopped; they were flaxenly fair girls, wearing little blue earrings, Sunday hats, and cotton gloves of course—all the party wore cotton gloves; it was, Julia judged, part of the excursion outfit.

Now they were really off, driving out beyond the outskirts of the town; along flat roads where the wheels sank noiselessly into the soft sand, and the horses' feet clattered on the narrow brick track in the centre. For a time they followed the canal closely, but soon they left it, and saw in the distance nothing but its high green banks, with the brown sails of boats showing above, and looking as if they were a good deal higher than the carriage road. They passed small fields, subdivided into yet smaller patches, and all very highly cultivated. And small black and white houses, and small black and white cows, and black and white goats, and dogs, and even cats of the same combination of colour. Everything was rather small, but everywhere very tidy; nothing out of its place or wasted, and nobody hurrying or idling; all were busy, with a small bustling business, as unlike aggressive English idleness as it was unlike the deceptive, leisurely power of English work.

Denah and Anna looked out of either side of the carriage, and pointed out things to Julia and the two little girls. Here it was what they called a country seat, a sort of castellated variety of overgrown chalet, surrounded by a wonderful garden of blazing flower-beds and emerald lawns, all set round with rows and rows of plants in bright red pots. Or there it was a cemetery, where the peaceful aspect made Denah sentimental, and the beauty of the trees drew Anna's praise. The two elder ladies paid less attention to what they passed; they contented themselves with leaning back and saying how beautiful the air was, and how refreshing the country. The girls said that as well; they all agreed six times within the hour that it was a delightful expedition, and they enjoying it much.

In time they came to the wood. An unpaved road ran through it of soft, deep sand, which deadened every sound; on either hand the trees rose, pines and larch and beech principally, with a few large-leafed shivering poplars here and there. There was no undergrowth, and few bird songs, only the dim wood aisles stretching away, quiet and green. Suddenly it seemed to Julia that the world's horizon had been stretched, the little neatness, the clean, trim brightness, the bustling, industrious toy world was gone; in its place was the twilight of the trees, the silence, the repose, the haunting, indefinable sense of home which is only to be found in these cathedrals of Nature's making.

"Ah, the wood!" Denah said, with a profound sigh. "The beautiful wood! Miss Julia, do you not love it?"

Julia did not assent, but Denah went on quite satisfied, "You cannot love it as I do; I think I am a child of Nature, nothing would please me more than always to live here."

"You would have to go into the town sometimes," Julia said, "to buy gloves; the ones you have would not last for ever."

Denah looked a little puzzled by the difficulty; she had not apparently thought out the details of life in a natural state; but before she could come to any conclusion one of the little girls cried, "Music—I hear music!"

All the ladies said "Delicious!" together, and "How beautiful!" and Denah, content to ignore Nature, added rapturously, "Music in the wood! Ah, exquisite! two beauties together!"

Julia echoed the remark, though the music was that of a piano-organ. The horizon had drawn in again, and the prospect narrowed; the silence was full of noises now, voices and laughter, amidst which the organ notes did not seem out of place. And near at hand under the trees there were tables spread and people having tea, enjoying themselves in a simple-hearted, noisy fashion, in no way suggestive of cathedral twilight.

The carriage was put up, the tea ordered, and in a little they, too, were sitting at one of the square tables. Each lady was provided with a high wooden chair, and a little wooden box footstool. A kettle on a hot potful of smouldering wood ashes was set on the table; cups and saucers and goats' milk were also supplied to them, and opaque beet-root sugar. The food they had brought in their baskets, big new broodje split in half, buttered and put together again with a slither of Dutch cheese between. These and, to wind up with, some thin sweet biscuits carried in a papier-mache box, and handed out singly by Vrouw Van Heigen, who had brought them as a surprise and a treat.

"Do they have such picnics as this in England?" Anna asked, as she gathered up the crumbs of her biscuit.

"I have never been to one," Julia answered, and inwardly she thought of her mother and Violet driving in a wheeled ark to the wood, there to sit at little wooden tables and stretch their mouths in the public eye.

"Ah!" said Vrouw Snieder; "then it is all the more of a pleasure and a novelty to you."

Julia said it was, and soon afterwards they rose from the table to walk in the wood. The two elder ladies did not get far, and before long came back to sit on their wooden chairs again. The girls went some little distance, all keeping together, and being careful not to wander out of sight and sound of the other picnic parties. Once when they came to the extreme limit of their walk, Julia half-hesitated. She looked into the quiet green distance. It would be easy to leave them, to give them the slip; she could walk at double their pace with half their exertion, she could lose herself among the trees while they were wondering why she had gone, and making up their minds to follow her; and, most important of all, when she came back she could explain everything quite easily, so that they would not think it in the least strange—an accident, a missing of the way, anything. Should she do it—should she? The wild creature that had lived half-smothered within her for all the twenty years of her life fluttered and stirred. It had stirred before, rebelling against the shams of the Marbridge life, as it rebelled against the restrictions of the present; it had never had scope or found vent; still, for all that it was not dead; possibly, even, it was growing stronger; it called her now to run away. But she did not do it; advisability, the Polkingtons' patron saint, suggested to her that one does not learn to shine in the caged life by allowing oneself the luxury of occasional escape.

She turned her back on the green distance. "Shall we not go back to where the music is playing?" she said.

They went, walking with their arms entwined as other girls were doing, Julia between the broad, white-skinned sisters, like a rapier between cushions. The two younger girls ran on in front. "There is Mevrouw," they cried. "She is calling us. The carriage is ready, too; oh, do you think it is already time to go?"

It seemed as if it really was the case. Vrouw Snieder stood clapping her hands and beckoning to them, and the coachman appeared impatient to be off. With reluctance, and many times repeated regrets, they collected their wraps and baskets, and got into the carriage.

"Good-bye, beautiful wood, good-bye!" Denah said, leaning far out as they started. "Oh, if one could but remain here till the moon rose!"

"It would be very damp," her mother observed. "The dew would fall."

To which incontestable remark Denah made no reply.

The return journey was much like the drive there, with one exception; they passed one object of interest they had not seen before. It was when they were nearing the outskirts of the town that Anna exclaimed, "An Englishman! Look, look, Miss Julia, a compatriot of yours!"

The season was full early for tourists, and at no time did the place attract many. Englishmen who came now probably came on business which was unlikely to bring them out to these quiet, flat fields. But Anna and Denah, who joined her in a much more demonstrative look-out than Marbridge would have considered well-bred, were insistent on the nationality.

"He walks like an Englishman," Anna said, "as if all the world belonged to him."

"And looks like one," Denah added; "he has no moustache, and wears a glass in his eye, look, Miss Julia."

Julia looked, then drew back rather quickly. They were right, it was an Englishman; it was of all men Rawson-Clew.

What was he doing here? By what extraordinary chance he came to be in this unlikely place she could not think. She was very glad that Mevrouw felt the air chilly, and so had had the leather flaps pulled over part of the open sides of the carriage; this and the eager sisters screened her so well that it was unlikely he could see her.

"Is he not an Englishman?" Anna asked.

"Yes," she answered; "one could not mistake him for anything else."

"I wonder if he recognised you as a country-woman," Anna speculated; and Julia said she did not consider herself typically English in appearance.

The sisters talked for the rest of the way of the Englishman; of his air and bearing, and the fact, of which they declared themselves convinced, that he was a person of distinction.

But it was not till the drive was over, and the party had separated, that Denah was able to say what was burning on her tongue. They had left the clerk's children at their house, said good-bye to Vrouw Van Heigen and Julia, and were within their own home at last; the girls went up to their bedroom, and Denah carefully fastened the door, then she said mysteriously, "Miss Julia knows that Englishman."

Anna jumped at the intelligence, and still more at the tone. "Did she tell you?" she asked.

"No," Denah replied with some scorn; "she would not tell any one, she wishes it concealed; she thinks it is so, but I saw it."

The tone and manner suggested many things, but Anna was a terribly matter-of-fact person, to whom suggestions were nothing. "Why should she wish it concealed?" she inquired.

"I do not know why," Denah answered; "that remains to be seen. As for how I know it, I saw it in her face; when she looked at him her lips became set, and her eyes—she looked—" She hesitated for a word, and dropped to the homely, "She looked as if she would bite with annoyance that he should be here. The expression was gone in a moment; she spoke with an ease and naturalness that was astonishing, even disgusting; but it had been there. I do not trust her."

The last was said with great seriousness, and for a little Anna was impressed. But not for long, she could not accept such evidence as this; in her opinion it was "fancy."

"You read too many romances," she said; "your head is full of such things. I do not believe Miss Julia knew the Englishman, she would not have hidden from us her knowledge if she did; it is not so easy to hide one's feelings in the flash of an eye, besides there was no reason. Also"—this as an afterthought—"he was a man of good family; you could see at a glance that he was of the aristocracy, while she is a paid companion to Vrouw Van Heigen; she could never before have met him."

Denah, however, was not convinced; she only repeated darkly, "I mistrust her."

Julia, in the meantime, was busy with her household duties, talking over the excursion the while with Mevrouw, and helping to detail it to Mijnheer. At last the table was ready for supper and the coffee made. Mevrouw sat with her crochet, and Mijnheer opposite her with his paper. It wanted more than a quarter of an hour to supper time, Julia had been too quick; still it did not matter, the coffee would not hurt standing on the spirit-stove; it stood there half the day. She had all this time to spare, but she did not fetch her crochet work; she went outside to the veranda.

It was almost dark by this time, as dark as it ever got on these nights; the air was still and warm. She opened the glass door and went out and sat down on the step. There was a smell of water in the air, not unpleasant, but quite un-English, and mixed with it a faint smell of flowers, the late blooming bulbs have little scent on the whole; it was more the heavy dew than the flowers themselves which one could smell. It was very quiet out here; the town, at no time noisy, was some distance away—so quiet that Julia could hear the ticking of Mr. Gillat's large watch in her belt. She pushed it further down; she did not want to hear it.

She propped her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands. She wished she had not seen Rawson-Clew that day; she wished she was not here, she wished there was no such thing as a blue daffodil; she was vaguely angry and dissatisfied, but not willing to face things. It was unlikely that the man had seen her, unlikely that she would see him again; but he was incongruous in this simple life, and he brought forcibly home the incongruity of herself and her errand. She had come for the blue daffodil, it was no good pretending she had not; she told herself angrily, as she had told herself when she had first looked at Johnny's yellow-faced watch, that she was going to get it in some way that was justifiable. Only it was not so easy to believe that now she knew more about it and the Van Heigens. But she must have it, that was the argument she fell back on, the necessity was so great that she was justified (the Polkingtons had always found necessity a justification for doing things that could be anyhow made to square with their position).

She wished she had not been for the excursion to-day, that she lived less really in their simple, sincere life. She wished from her heart that the Van Heigens had been different sort of people—almost any other sort, then she would not have had these tiresome feelings—Johnny and Johnny's watch, Joost Van Heigen—there was something about them all that was hatefully embarrassing. No self-respecting thief robbed a child; even the most apathetic conscience revolted at such an idea. No gentleman worthy of the name attacked an unarmed man, the preparedness of the parties made all the difference between murder and fair fight. Of course, in the abstract, stealing was stealing under all conditions, and killing killing, and both open to condemnation; but in the concrete, in fact, the equality of the two persons made all the difference, at least to honour.

Julia moved uneasily and looked, without seeing, across the dark garden. The monotonous sound of voices floated out indistinctly; the old pair in the sitting-room were talking in the lamplight, Mevrouw going over once again the little incidents of the day. Joost was in the drawing-room at the other end of the house; he had been playing some of his favourite composer; he had stopped now, and was doubtless sorting his music and putting it away, each piece four-square and absolutely neat. Day by day, and year by year, they lived this quiet life, with a drive for a rare holiday treat, and the discovery of a new flower as the goal of all hope and ambition. Things did not happen to them, bad things that needed doubtful remedies; they had never had to scratch for their living, and show one face outwards and another in. They, none of them, ever wanted to do things; they had not the courage. How much of virtue was lack of courage and a desire not to be remarkable?

Julia asked herself the question defiantly, and did not hear Joost come out of the house. He was carrying a lantern, and was going to make his nightly round of the barns. She did not hear his step, and so started when she saw the light swing across the ground at her feet.

He was quite as startled to see her as she was to see him, but his greeting was a very usual question in Holland, "Will you not catch cold?"

She shook her head, and he asked, "What are you doing? Thinking? Weaving in your head all that you have seen and heard to-day?"

"No," she answered; "I was thinking about courage."

"Courage?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, it is very different in different places; some people are afraid to tell the truth, so they lie; and some are afraid to be dishonest, so they are honest; I believe it depends partly on fashion."

Joost set down the lantern in sheer surprise. "Such things cannot depend on fashion," he said severely.

"I am not so sure," Julia answered; "lots of things you would not expect depend on it. I know people who sometimes go without the food they want so that they can buy expensive cakes to show off when their acquaintances come to tea—that's silly, isn't it? Then I know other people who blush if a pair of breeches, or something equally inoffensive, are mentioned; that seems equally silly. One lot of people is ashamed to be seen eating bread-and-cheese suppers, another lot is ashamed to be seen walking off the side-walk, and with no gloves on. One would hardly expect in, yet I almost believe these silly little things somehow make a difference to what the people think right and wrong."

Joost regarded her doubtfully, though he could only see the outline of her face. "Are you making fun?" he asked. "I do not know when you are making fun; I think you must be now. Are you speaking of us?"

"I never felt less like making fun in my life," Julia answered ignoring the last question. Something in her tone struck Joost as sad, and he forgot his question in sympathy.

"I am sorry," he said; "you are unhappy, and I have intruded upon you; will you forgive me? You are thinking of your home, no doubt; you have not had a letter from England for a long time."

Julia wished he did not notice so many things. "I did not expect a letter," she said; "my eldest sister was married last week, there would be no time to write to me till everything was over; most likely I shall hear to-morrow."

"Is your sister married?" he asked; "and you were not able to be present?"

"It is too far to go home from here," Julia said; then asked, "Were you going to the barns?"

"Yes," he answered, suddenly reminded of the fact. Then seeing she did not resume her seat on the steps, he ventured diffidently, "Will you come too?"

She assented, and they started together in silence, Joost thinking her homesick, not knowing quite what to say. When they came to the first of the dark buildings they went in, and he swung the lantern round so that their shadows danced fantastically. Then he tried various doors, and glanced up the wall-ladder to the square opening which led to the floor above. There was no need to examine the place minutely, it was all quiet and dark; if there had been any one about they would certainly have heard, and if there had been anything smouldering—a danger more to be feared, seeing that the men smoked everywhere—it could have been smelt in the dry air.

"I like these barns," Julia said, looking round: "they are so big and quiet and orderly, somehow so respectable."

"Respectable!" he repeated, as if he did not approve of the word. "Is that what you like? The respectable?"

"Yes, in its place; and its place is here."

"You think us respectable?"

"Well, are you not? I think you are the most respectable people in the world."

She led the way through to the next barn as she spoke. "You are going here, too, I suppose?" she said.

"I will just look round," he answered.

They went on together until they came to the last barn of all; while they paused there a moment they heard a rustling and movement in the dark, far corner. Joost started violently, then he said, "It is a rat, you must not be afraid; it will not run this way."

"I am not afraid," Julia said with amusement. "Do you think I am afraid of rats?"

"Girls often are."

"Well, I am not," and it was clear from her manner that she spoke the truth.

"Would you be afraid to come out here alone?" he asked curiously.

"No," she said; "any night that you like I will come here alone, go through the barns and fasten the doors."

"I do not believe there are many girls who would do that," he said; he was thinking of Denah and Anna.

Julia told him there were plenty who would. As they came back, stopping to fasten each door after them, he remarked, "I think girls are usually brought up with too much protection; I mean girls of our class, they are too much shielded; one has them for the house only; if they were flowers I would call them stove-plants."

Julia laughed. "You believe in the emancipation of women then?" she said; "you would rather a woman could take care of herself, and not be afraid, than be womanly?"

"No," he answered; "I would like them to be both, as you are."

They had come outside now; she was standing in the misty moon-light, while he stayed to fasten the last door.

"I?" she said; "you seem to think me a paragon—clever, brave, womanly. Do you know what I really am? I am bad; by a long way the wickedest person you have known."

But he did not believe her, which was perhaps not altogether surprising.



CHAPTER VI

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR

Violet Polkington was married, and, as a consequence, the financial affairs of the family were in a state that can only be described as wonderful. They were intricately involved, of course, and there was no chance of their being clear again for a year at least; but, also, there was no chance of them being found out, appearances were better than ever.

Mr. Frazer had been given a small living, whether by the deserved kindness of fortune, or by reason of his own efforts, or the Polkingtons, is not known. Anyhow he had it, and he and Violet were married in June with all necessary eclat. Local papers described the event in glowing terms, appreciative friends said it was the prettiest wedding in years, and in due time Cherie wrote and told Julia about it. The Captain also wrote; his point of view was rather different, but his letter filled up gaps in Cherie's information, and Julia's own past experience filled up the remaining gaps in both.

The letters came on Tuesday, as Julia expected, a little before dinner time; she was still reading them when Mijnheer and his son came in from the office. Joost smiled sympathetically when he saw she had them, glad on her account; and she, almost unconsciously, crumpled together the sheets that lay on the table beside her, as if she were afraid they would betray their contents to him.

"You have good news from home?" said Mijnheer; "your parents are well?"

"Quite well, thank you," Julia answered. She had just come to the place in her father's letter where he regretted that such very light refreshments were the fashion at wedding receptions. "It is, of course, as your mother says, less expensive, but at such a time who would spare expense—if it were the fashion? I assure you I had literally nothing to eat at the time, or afterwards; your mother thinking it advisable as soon as we were alone, to put away the cakes for future visitors. At such a time, when a man's feelings are nearly touched, he needs support; I did not have it, and I cannot say that I have felt myself since."

Julia read to the end of the letter; Mijnheer had by this time taken up a paper, but Joost watched her as she folded the sheets. He did not speak, it seemed he would not intrude upon her; there was something dog-like in this sympathy with what was not understood. She felt vaguely uncomfortable by reason of it, and spoke to break the spell. "Everything went off very well," she said.

The words were for him alone, since Mijnheer was now reading, and also knew nothing of the subject. The smile brightened on his face. "Did it?" he answered. "I am very glad. They must have missed you much, and thought often of you."

Julia nodded. Cherie had said. "I must say I think it is a pity you were not here; it is important to have some one with a head in the background; mother and I had to be the fore, so of course we could not do it; if you had been here several things would have gone better, and some waste have been saved."

This remark Julia did not communicate to Joost; she put the letter in her pocket, and went to fetch the dinner. After dinner she was to go on an errand for Mevrouw. It would take a long time, all the evening in fact, for it was to an old relative who lived in a village about three miles from the town. Walking was the only way of getting to the place, except twice a week when a little cargo boat went down the canal, and took some hours about it. This was neither the day nor the time for the boat, Julia would have to walk; but, as she assured Mevrouw, she much preferred it. Accordingly, as soon as dinner was finished, she was given a great many messages, mostly of a condoling nature, for the old lady was ill in bed, some strengthening soup, and a little bottle of the peach-brandy. With these things packed in a substantial marketing basket, she started.

Through the town she went with that easy step and indifference to the presence of other people that Denah so criticised, faster and faster her spirits rising. Once or twice she looked in at the low windows that stood open on the shady side of the street; there she saw the heads of families smoking their after-dinner pipes, while their wives and daughters sat crocheting and watching the passersby. There were chairs with crimson velvet seats in most of the rooms, and funny little cabinet, or side-board things of bright red mahogany, with modern Delft vases, very blue indeed, upon them. And always there was a certain snugness, perhaps even smugness, about the rooms. At least, so it seemed to her as she looked in, almost insolently pleased to be outside, to be free and alone.

In time she came to the outskirts of the town, the canal lay on her right, and on her left, flat green fields, cut up by innumerable ditches, and set with frequent windmills, all black and white, and mostly used for maintaining the water level. There were people busy in the fields, but to Julia they only gave the idea of ants, and did not intrude upon her mind in the least. It was all very quiet and green around, and quiet and blue above, except for the larks singing rapturously. Certainly it was very good to be away from the Van Heigens, away from the ceaseless little reiteration of Mevrouw's talk, from the minute, punctilious conventions, from Joost's quiet gaze, from the proximity of the hateful, necessary blue daffodil. With a violent rebound Julia shook off the feeling that had been growing on her of late, and was once more possibly reckless, but certainly free, and no longer under the spell of her surroundings. Her young blood coursed quickly, her eyes shone, the basket she carried grew light; she might have sung as she went had not Nature, in withholding the ability, also kindly withheld the inclination.

Soon after leaving the town, a side road cut into the main one; a waggon was lumbering down it at no great pace, but just before the branch road joined the main one the driver cracked his whip loudly, so that his team of young horses started forward suddenly. Too suddenly for the comprehension of some children who were playing in the road; for a second or more they looked at the approaching waggon, then, when the necessity dawned upon them, they ran for safety, one one way, one another, and the third, a baby boy, like a chicken, half across the way to the right, then, after a scurry in the middle, back again to the left, under the horses' feet.

Julia shouted to him, but in the excitement of the moment she spoke English, and not Dutch, though it hardly mattered, for the little boy was far too frightened to understand anything. It certainly would have fared badly with him had she not followed up her cry by darting into the road, seizing him by the shoulder, and flinging him with considerable force against the green wayside bank. She was only just in time; as it was, the foremost horse struck her shoulder and sent her rolling into the dust.

For an instant she lay there, perilously near the big grinding wheels; an almost imperceptible space, yet somehow long enough for her to decide quite calmly that it was impossible to scramble to her feet in time, so she had better draw her legs up and trust to the wheels missing her. Then suddenly the wheels stopped, and some one who had seized the horses' heads addressed the waggoner with the English idiom that is perhaps most widely known.

Julia heard "damned fool" in quite unemotional English, and almost simultaneously the guttural shrieks of two peasant women who approached. She picked herself up, then moving two paces to the side, stopped to put her hat straight with a calmness she did not quite feel. There was a volley of exclamations from the peasant women, and "Are you hurt?" the man who had stopped the horses asked her, speaking now in Dutch, though with an English accent.

"No," she answered, winking back the water which had come into her eyes with the force of the blow, and she turned her back on him so that he should not see her do it.

"My good women," she said shortly to the peasants who, with upraised hands and many gestures, stared at her, "there is nothing the matter, there is no reason why you should stand there and look at me; I assure you no one has been hurt, and no one is going to be; you had much better go on your way, as I shall do. Good-afternoon."

She walked a few paces down the road, not in the direction she intended to go certainly, but she was too shaken for the moment to notice which way she took, and was only actuated by a desire to get away and put an end to a scene. The movement and the words were not without effect; the two women, a good deal astonished, obeyed automatically, and, picking up the burdens they had set down, trudged on their way, not realising for some time how much offended they were at the curt behaviour of the "mad English." The children by this time had ceased staring and returned to their play; the waggoner, muttering some surly words, drove on. Julia sat on the bank by the roadside, and tried to brush the dust from her dress. The Englishman, after making some parting remarks to the waggoner, this time in Dutch, though still in the quiet, drawling voice which was much at variance with the language, had gone to pick up the basket. She wished she had thanked him for his timely assistance when she first scrambled to her feet, and gone on at once, then she could have done this necessary sitting down when he was out of sight, and come back for the stupid basket when she remembered it. But now she would have to thank him formally, and perhaps explain things, and say expressly that she was not hurt, and this while she was shaken and dusty. Mercifully he was English, and so would not expect much; she looked at his back with satisfaction. He was scarcely as tall as many Hollanders, but very differently built. To Julia, looking at him rather stupidly, his proportions, like his clothes, appeared very nearly perfect after those she had been used to seeing lately. When he turned and she saw for the first time his face, she was not very much surprised, though really it was surprising that Rawson-Clew should still be hereabouts.

Their eyes met in mutual recognition. Afterwards she wondered why she did not pretend to be Dutch, it ought to have been possible; he had only seen her once before, and her knowledge of the language was much better than his. And even if he had not been deceived, he would have been bound to acquiesce to her pretence, had she persisted in it. But she did not think of it before their mutual recognition had made it too late.

"I hope you are not hurt," he said, as he crossed the road with the basket.

"No," she answered, "thanks to you—"

But he, evidently sharing her dislike for a fuss, was even more anxious than she not to dwell on that, and dismissed the subject quickly. He began to wipe the bottom of the basket, from which soup was dripping, talking the while of the carelessness of continental drivers and the silliness of children of all nations, perhaps to give her time to recover.

She agreed with him, and then repeated her thanks.

He again set them aside. "It's nothing," he said; "I am glad to have had the opportunity, especially since it also gives me the opportunity of offering you some apology for an unfortunate misunderstanding which arose when last I saw you. You must feel that it needs an apology."

For a moment Julia's eyes showed her surprise; an apology was not what she expected, and, to tell the truth, it did not altogether please her. She knew that she and her father had no right to it while the money was unpaid.

"Please do not apologise," she said; "there is no need, I quite understand."

"I was labouring under a false impression," Rawson-Clew explained.

She nodded. "I know," she said, "but it is cleared up now; no one who spoke with my father could possibly imagine he lived by his wits."

Which ambiguous remark may have been meant to apply to the Captain's mental outfit more than his moral one. When Rawson-Clew knew Julia better he came to the conclusion it probably did, at the time he thought it wise not to answer it.

"Here is your basket," he said; "I think it is clean now."

She made a movement to take it, but her arm was numb and powerless from the blow she had received; it was the right shoulder which had been struck, and that hand was clearly useless for the time being; with a wince of pain, she stretched out the left.

But he drew the basket back. "You are hurt," he said.

"No, I'm not, nothing to speak of; it only hurts me when I move that arm; I will carry the basket with the other hand."

"How far have you to go?"

She told him to the village and back.

"You had better go straight home at once," he said.

"I can't do that," she answered. She did not explain that she did not want to, the pain in her shoulder not being bad enough to make her want to give up this first hour of freedom. "My shoulder does not hurt if I do not move it," she said; "I can carry the basket with the other hand."

"Perhaps you will allow me to carry it for you?" he suggested; "I am going the same way."

"No, thank you," she returned. "Thanks very much for the offer, but there isn't any need; I can manage quite well. I expect you will want to go faster than I do." She spoke decidedly, and turned about quickly; as she did so, she caught sight of the bottle of peach-brandy in the grass.

"Oh, there's the brandy," she exclaimed; "I mustn't go without that."

He fetched the fortunately unbroken bottle and put it in the basket, but he did not give it to her.

"I will carry this," he said; "if our pace does not agree, if you would prefer to walk more slowly, I will wait for you at the beginning of the village."

Julia rose to her feet, there was no choice left to her but to acquiesce; from her heart she wished he would leave the basket and go alone; she wished even that he would be rude to her, she felt that then he would have been nearer her level and her father's. She resented alike his presence and his courtesy, and she could not show either feeling, only accept what he offered and walk by his side, just as if no money was owed, and no letter, condescendingly cancelling the debt, had been written. She grew hot as she thought of that carefully worded letter, and hot when she thought of her father's relief thereat. And here, here was the man who must have dictated the letter, and probably paid the debt, behaving just as if such things never existed. He was walking with her—she could not give him ten yards start and follow him into the village—and making polite conversations about the weather, and the road, and the quantity of soup that had been spilled.

She pulled herself together, and, feeling the situation to be beyond remedy, determined to bear herself bravely, and carry it off with what credit she could. She glanced at the more than half-empty soup can. "I am afraid you are right," she said; "there is a great deal of it gone; still, that is not without advantage—I shall be sent to take some more in a day or two."

"You wish that?" he inquired.

"Yes," she answered, "I find the exercise beneficial; I have had too much pudding lately."

He looked politely surprised, and she went on to explain.

"It is very wholesome," she said, "but a bit stodgy; I think it is too really good to be taken in such large quantities by any one like me. It is unbelievably good, it makes one perfectly ashamed of oneself; and unbelievably narrow, it makes one long for bed-time."

She broke off to smile at his more genuine surprise, and her smile, like that of some other people of little real beauty, was one of singular charm.

"Did you think I meant actual pudding?" she asked. "I didn't; I meant just the whole life here; if you knew the people well, the real middle class ones, you would understand."

"I think I can understand without knowing them well," he said; "I fancy there is a good deal of pudding about; in fact, I myself am feeling its rather oppressive influence."

"The town is paved with it," Julia declared. "I thought so this afternoon. I also thought, though it is Tuesday, it was just like a spring Sunday; every day is like that."

Rawson-Clew suggested that many people appreciated spring Sundays.

"So do I," Julia agreed, "but in moderation; you can't do your washing on Sunday, nor your harvesting in spring. An endless succession of spring Sundays is very awkward when you have got—well, week-day work to do, don't you think so?"

He wondered a little what week-day work she had in her mind, but he did not ask.

"Are you living with a Dutch family?" he inquired.

She nodded. "As companion," she said; "sort of superior general servant."

"Indeed? Then it must have been you I saw yesterday; I thought so at the time; you were driving with some Dutch ladies."

Julia was surprised that he had seen and recognised her. "We went for an excursion yesterday," she said; "they called it a picnic."

She told him about it, not omitting any of the points which had amused her. Could Joost have heard her, he would have felt that his suspicion that she sometimes laughed at them more than justified; but she did not give a thought to Joost, and probably would not have paused if she had. She wanted to pass the present time, and she was rather reckless how, so long as Rawson-Clew either talked himself, or seemed interested in what she said; also, it must be admitted, though it was to this man, it was something of a treat to talk freely again. So she gave him the best account she could, not only of the excursion, but of other things too. And if it was his attention she wanted, she should have been satisfied, for she apparently had it, at first only the interest of courtesy, afterwards something more; it even seemed, before the end, as if she puzzled him a little, in spite of his years and experience.

He found himself mentally contrasting the life at the Van Heigens', as she described it, with that which he had imagined her to have led at Marbridge, and, now that he talked to her, he could not find her exact place in either.

"You must find Dutch conventionality rather trying," he said at last.

"I am not used to it yet," she answered; "when I am it will be no worse than the conventionality at home."

He felt he was wrong in one of his surmises; clearly she was not really Bohemian. "Surely," he said, "you have not found these absurd rules and restrictions in England?"

"Not the same ones; we study appearances one way, and they do another; but it comes to the same thing, so far as I am concerned. One day I hope to be able to give it up and retire; when I do I shall wear corduroy breeches and if I happen to be in the kitchen eating onions when people come to see me, I shall call them in and offer them a share."

"Rather an uncomfortable ambition, isn't that?" he inquired. "I am afraid you will have to wait some time for its fulfilment, especially the corduroy. I doubt if you will achieve that this side the grave, though you might perhaps make a provision in your will to be buried in it."

Julia laughed a little. "You think my family would object? They would; but, you see, I should be retiring from them as well as from the world, the corduroy might be part of my bulwarks."

"I don't think you could afford it even for that; do you think women ever can afford that kind of disregard for appearances?"

"Plain ones can," she said; "it is the only compensation they have for being plain; not much, certainly, seeing what they lose, but they have it. When you can never look more than indifferent, it does not matter how much less you look."

"That is a rather unusual idea," he remarked; "it appears sound in theory, but in practice—"

"Sounder still," she answered him.

He laughed. "I'm afraid you won't make many converts here," he said, "where nearly every woman is plain, and according to your experience, every one, men and women too, think a great deal of looks; at all events, correct ones."

"They do do that," she admitted; "they just worship propriety and the correct, and have the greatest notion of the importance of their neighbours' eyes. It is a perfect treat to be out alone, and not have to regard them—this is the first time I have been out alone since I have been here."

"Rather hard; I thought every one had—er—time off."

"An evening out?" she suggested. "I believe the number of evenings out is regulated by the number of applications for the post when vacant; cooks could get more evenings than housemaids, and nursery governesses might naturally expect a minus number, if that were possible. There would be lots of applications for my post, so I can't expect many evenings; however, I have thought of a plan by which I can get out again and again!"

"What will you do?" he inquired.

"I shall get Denah—she is one of the girls who went for the excursion—to come and teach Mevrouw a new crochet pattern after dinner of a day. It will take ages, Mevrouw learns very slowly, and Denah will know better than to hurry matters; she admires Mijnheer Joost, the Van Heigens' son, and she will be only too delighted to have an excuse to come to the house."

"And if she is there you will have a little leisure? Some one always has to be on duty? Is that it?"

Julia laughed softly. "If she is there," she said, "she will want me out of the way, and I am not satisfactorily out of the way when I am anywhere on the premises. Not that Mijnheer Joost talks to me when I am there, or would talk to her if I were not; she just mistrusts every unmarried female by instinct."

"A girl's instinct in such matters is not always wrong," Rawson-Clew observed.

But if he thought Julia had any mischievous propensities of that sort he was mistaken. "I should not think of interfering in such an affair," she said; "why, it would be the most suitable thing in the world, as suitable as it is for my handsome and able sister to marry the ambitious and able nephew of a bishop; they are the two halves that make one whole. Denah and Joost would live a perfectly ideal pudding life; he with his flowers—that is his work, you know; he cares for nothing besides, really—and she with her housekeeping. He with a little music for relaxation, she with her neighbours and accomplishments; it would be as neat and complete and suitable as anything could be."

"And that commends it to you? I should have imagined that what was incongruous and odd pleased you better."

"I like that too," she was obliged to admit, "though best when the people concerned don't see the incongruity; but I don't really care either way, whether things are incongruous or suitable, I enjoy both, and should never interfere so long as they don't upset my concerns and the end in view."

He looked at her curiously; again it seemed he was at fault; she was not merely a wayward girl in revolt against convention, saying what she deemed daring for the sake of saying it, and in the effort to be original. She was not posing as a Bohemian any more than she was truly one.

"Have you usually an end in view?" he asked.

"Have not you?" she answered, turning on him for a moment eyes that Joost had described as "eating up what they looked at." "Of course," she said, looking away again, "it is quite natural, and very possible, that you are here for no purpose, and I am here for no purpose too; you might quite well have come to this little town for amusement, and I have come for the money I might earn as a companion. Or you might have drifted here by accident, as I might, without any special reason—" She stopped as she spoke; they were fast approaching the first house of the village now, and she held out her hand for the basket. "I will take it," she said; "I have a very short distance to go; thank you so much."

"Let me carry it the rest of the way," he insisted; "I am going through the village; we may as well go the rest of the way together, I want you to tell me—"

But Julia did not tell him anything, except that her way was by the footpath which turned off to the right. "I could not think of troubling you further," she said. "Thank you."

She put her hand on the basket, so that he was obliged to yield it; then, with another word of thanks, she said "good-evening," and started by the path.

For a moment he looked after her, annoyed and interested against his will; of course, she meant nothing by her words about his purpose and her own, still it gave him food for reflection about her, and the apparent incongruity of her present surroundings. On the whole, he was glad he had met her, partly for the entertainment she had given, and partly for the opportunity he had had to apologise.

An apology was due to her for the affair of last winter, he felt it; though, at the same time, he could not hold himself much to blame in the matter. He had gone to Marbridge to see into his young cousin's affairs at the request of the boy's widowed mother. The affairs, as might have been expected, were in muddle enough, and the boy himself was incorrigibly silly and extravagant. The whole business needed tact and patience, and in the end had not been very satisfactorily arranged; during the process Captain Polkington's name had been mentioned more than once; he figured, among other ways, of spending much and getting little in return. Somehow or other Rawson-Clew had got the impression that the Captain was—well, perhaps pretty much what he really had come to be; and if that was not quite what his wife had persuaded herself and half Marbridge to think him, surely no one was to blame. The mistake made was about the Captain's wife and daughters and position in the town; Rawson-Clew, in the first instance, never gave them a thought; the Captain was a detached person in his mind, and, as such, a possible danger to his cousin's loose cash. He went to No. 27 to talk plainly to the man, not to tell him he was a shark and an adventurer; it was the Captain himself who translated and exaggerated thus; not even to tell him what he thought, that he was a worthless old sponge, but to make it plain that things would not go on as they had been doing. The girl's interruption had been annoying, so ill-timed and out of place; she ought to have gone at once when he suggested it; she had placed him and herself, too, in an embarrassing position; yet, at the same time—he saw it now, though he did not earlier—there was something quaint in the way she had both metaphorically and actually stood between him and her miserable old father. He had dictated the subsequent letter to the Captain more on her account than anything else. He considered that by it he was making her the amend honourable for the unfortunate interview of the afternoon, as well as closing the incident. Of course, nothing real was forfeited by the letter, for under no circumstances would the money have been repaid; he never had any delusion about that. From which it appears that his opinion of the Captain had not changed.

As for his opinion of Julia, he had not one when he first saw her, except that she had no business to be there; now, however, he felt some little interest in her. There was very little that was interesting in this small Dutch town; it was a refreshing change, he admitted it to himself, to see a girl here who put her clothes on properly; something of a change to meet one anywhere who did not at once fall into one of the well-defined categories.

Much in this world has to be lain at the door of opportunity, and idleness in youth, and ennui and boredom in middle ages. Rawson-Clew was in the borderland between the two, and did not consider himself open to the temptations of either. He was not idle, he had things to do; and he was not bored, he had things to think about; but not enough of either to prevent him from having a wide margin.

When he met Julia again there was no reason for dropping the acquaintance renewed through necessity. But also there was no opportunity, on that occasion, for pushing it further, even if there had been inclination, for she was not alone.

It was on Saturday evening; she was walking down the same road, much about the same time, but there was with her a tall, fair young man, with a long face and loose limbs. He carried, of course, an umbrella—that was part of his full dress—and the basket—he walked between her and the cart track. She bowed sedately to Rawson-Clew, and the young man, becoming tardily aware of it, took off his hat, rather late, and with a sweeping foreign flourish. She wore a pair of cotton gloves, and lifted her dress a few inches, and glanced shyly up at her escort now and then as he talked. They were speaking Dutch, and she was behaving Dutch, as plain and demure a person as it was possible to imagine, until she looked back, then Rawson-Clew saw a very devil of mockery and mischief flash up in her eyes. Only for a second; the expression was gone before her head was turned again, and that was decorously soon. But it had been there; it was like the momentary parting of the clouds on a grey day; it illumined her whole face—her mind, too, perhaps—as the eerie, tricky gleam, which is gone before a man knows it, lights up the level landscape, and transforms it to something new and strange.

Rawson-Clew walked on ahead of the pair; he had to outpace them, since he was bound the same way, and could not walk with them. He was not sure that he was not rather sorry for Denah, the Dutch girl; one who can laugh at herself as well as another, and all alone, too, is he thought, rather apt to enjoy the incongruous more than the suitable.



CHAPTER VII

HOW JULIA DID NOT GET THE BLUE DAFFODIL

Vrouw Van Heigen was learning a new crochet pattern; one did it in thread of a Sevres blue shade; when several long strips were made, one sewed them together with pieces of black satin between each two, and there was an antimacassar of severe but rich beauty. Denah explained all this as she set Mevrouw to work on the pattern; it was very intricate, quite exciting, because it was so difficult; the more excited the old lady became the more mistakes she made, but it did not matter; Denah was patience itself, and did not seem to mind how much time she gave. She came every day after dinner (that is to say, about six o'clock), and when she came it was frequently found necessary that Julia should go to inquire after the invalid cousin. Denah thought herself the deepest and most diplomatic young woman in Holland; she even found it in her heart to pity Julia, the poor companion, who she used as a pawn in her romance. The which, since it was transparently obvious to the pawn, gave her vast, though private, delight.

So Julia went almost daily down the long flat road to the village, and very often Rawson-Clew had to go that way too; and when he did, his time of going being of necessity much the same time as hers, he was almost bound to walk with her. There was but one way to the place; they must either walk together in the middle of the road, or else separately, one side of it; and seeing that they were of the same nationality, in a foreign land, and had some previous acquaintance, it would have been nothing short of absurd to have done the latter. So as often as they met they walked together and talked of many things, and in the course of time Rawson-Clew came to find Julia's company a good deal more entertaining than his own; although she had read nothing she ought to have read, seen nothing she ought to have seen, and occasionally both thought and said things she certainly ought not, and was not even conventionally unconventional.

They usually parted at the footpath, which shortened her way a little, Rawson-Clew giving her the basket there, and going down the road alone; in consequence of this it was some time before she knew for certain where it was he went, although she had early guessed. But one damp evening she departed from her usual custom. It had been raining heavily all day, and although it had cleared now, a thick mist lay over the wet fields.

"I shall have to go round by the road," she said, as she looked at the track.

Rawson-Clew agreed with her. "I am rather surprised that you came out at all this evening," he remarked. "I should have thought your careful friends would have been afraid of colds and wet feet."

"Vrouw Van Heigen was," Julia answered, "but Denah and I were not. It is the last opportunity we shall have for a little while; Joost goes to Germany on business to-morrow."

Rawson-Clew laughed. "Which means, I suppose," he said, "that she will neglect the crochet work, and you will have to superintend it? Not very congenial to you, is it?"

"Good discipline," she told him.

"And for that reason to be welcomed? Really you deserve to succeed in whatever it is you are attempting; you do not neglect details."

"Details are often important," she said; "stopping at home and doing crochet work while Joost is in Germany, for instance, may help me a good deal."

The tone struck Rawson-Clew as implying more than the words said, but he did not ask for an interpretation, and before long she had put a question to him. They were nearing a large house that stood far back from the road on the left hand side. It was a big block of a place, greyish-white in colour, and with more than half of its windows bricked up, indescribably gloomy. A long, straight piece of water lay before it, stretching almost from the walls to the road, from which it was separated by a low fence. Tall, thick trees grew in a close row on either side, narrowing the prospect; a path ran up beside them on the one hand, the only way to the house, but in the steamy mist which lay thick over everything this evening one could hardly see it, and it looked as if the place were unapproachable from the front.

Julia glanced curiously towards the house; it was the only one of any size or possible interest in the village; the only one, she had decided some time ago, that Rawson-Clew could have any reason to visit.

As they approached the gate she ventured, "You go here, do you not?"

"Yes," he answered; "to Herr Van de Greutz."

"The cousin tells me he is a great chemist," Julia said.

"He is," Rawson-Clew agreed, "and one much absorbed in his work; it is impossible to see him even on business except in the evening."

He paused by the gate as he spoke. "You have not much further to go, have you?" he said. "Will you excuse me carrying your basket further? I am afraid I am rather behind my time."

Julia took the basket, assuring him she had no distance to carry it, but her eyes as she said it twinkled with amusement; it was not really late, and she knew it.

"You are afraid of what will be said next," she thought as she looked back at the man, who was already vanishing among the mists by the lake. And the thought pleased her somewhat, for it suggested that Rawson-Clew had a respect for her acumen, and also that her private fancy—that the business which brought him here was not of a kind for public discussion—was correct.

The cousin was better that evening; she even expressed hopes of living through the summer, a thing she had not done for more than three days. Julia cheered and encouraged her in this belief (which, indeed, there was every reason to think well founded) and gave her the messages and dainties she had brought. After that they talked of the weather, which was bad; and the neighbours, who, on the whole, were good. Julia knew most of them by name by this time—the kind old Padre and his wife; the captain of the little cargo-boat, who drank a little, and his generous wife, who talked a great deal; the fat woman who kept fowls, and the thin one who sometimes stole the eggs. Julia had heard all about them before, but she heard over again, and a little about the great chemist, Herr Van de Greutz, too.

This great man was naturally only a name to the invalid and her friends, but they had always plenty to say about him. He was so distinguished that all the village felt proud to have him live on their borders, and so disagreeable that they were decidedly in awe of him. Of his domestic arrangements there was always talk; he lived in his great gloomy house with an old housekeeper, whom Julia knew by sight, and a young cook, whom she did not; the former was a permanency, the latter very much the reverse, it being difficult to find a cook equal to his demands who would for any length of time endure the shortness of the housekeeper's temper, and the worse one of her master. The domestic affairs of the chemist were a favourite subject of gossip, but sometimes his attainments came in for mention too; they did to-night, the cousin being in a garrulous mood. According to her, the great man had done everything in science worth mentioning, and was not only the first chemist in Holland, but in all the world; he looked down on all others, she said, regarding two Germans only as anything approaching his peers, all the English and French being nothing to him. He had discovered a great many things, dyes, poisons, and explosives; of the last he had recently perfected one which was twenty-two times stronger than anything before known. Its nature was, of course, a secret, but it would eventually raise the little army of Holland far above those of all other nations.

Julia listened, but especially to the last piece of information, which struck her as being the one most likely to prove interesting. Soon after hearing it, however, she was obliged to go. She made her farewells, and received messages of affection for Mevrouw, condolence for Mijnheer—who had a cold—and good wishes for Joost's journey. Then she started homewards, with a light basket and a busy mind.

It did not take her very long to decide that if there was any truth in this talk of Van de Greutz's achievements, it must be the last mentioned—the explosive—which brought Rawson-Clew here. Her judgment of men, for working purposes at least, was quick and fairly accurate, necessity and experience had helped Nature to make it so. There were one or two things in connection with Rawson-Clew which were very clear to her, he was not a scientist pure and simple; she had never met one, but she knew he was not one, and so was not likely to be interested in the great chemist for chemistry only. Nor was he a commercial man; neither his instincts nor his abilities lay in that direction; it was not a new process, not a trade secret which brought him here. Indeed, even though he might appreciate the value of such things, he would never dream of trying to possess himself of them.

Julia understood perfectly the scale in which such acts stood to men like Rawson-Clew. To attempt to master a man's discovery for one's own ends (as in a way she was doing) was impossible, rank dishonesty, never even contemplated; to do it for business purposes—well, he might admit it was sometimes necessary in business—commerce had its morality as law, and the army had theirs—but it was not a thing he would ever do himself, he would not feel it exactly honourable. But to attempt to gain a secret for national use was quite another thing, not only justifiable but right, more especially if, as was probably the case, the attempt was in fulfilment of a direct order. If after Herr Van de Greutz had a secret worth anything to England, it was that which had brought Rawson-Clew to the little town. She was as sure of it as she was that it was the blue daffodil which had brought her.

The hateful blue daffodil! Daily, to possess it grew more imperative. The intercourse with this man, the curious seeming equality that was being established between them, cried aloud for the paying of the debt, and the establishing of the reality of equality. She longed almost passionately to be able to regard herself, to know that the man had reason to regard her, as his equal. And yet to possess the thing seemed daily more difficult; more and more plainly did she see that bribery, persuasion, cajolery were alike useless. The precious bulb could be got in one way, and one only; it would never fall into her hands by skilful accident, or nicely stimulated generosity; she must take it, or she must do without it. She must get it for herself as deliberately as, in all probability, Rawson-Clew meant to get Herr Van de Greutz's secret.

She raised her head and looked at the flat, wet landscape with unseeing eyes that were contemptuous. How different two not dissimilar acts could be made to look! If she took the daffodil—and she would have unique opportunity to try during the next two days—Rawson-Clew would regard her as little better than a common thief; that is, if he happened to know about it. She winced a little as she thought of the faint expression of surprise the knowledge would call up in his impassive face and cold grey eyes. She could well imagine the slight difference in his manner to her afterwards, scarcely noticeable to the casual observer, impossible to be overlooked by her. She told herself she did not care what he thought; but she did. Pride was grasping at a desired, but impossible, equality with this man, and here, were the means used only known, was the nearest way to lose it. At times he had forgotten the gap of age and circumstances between them—really forgotten it, she knew, not only ignored it in his well-bred way. He had for a moment really regarded her as an equal; not, perhaps, as he might the women of his class, rather the men of like experience and attainments with himself. That was not what she wanted, but she recognised plainly that in grasping at a shadowy social feminine equality by paying the debt, she might well lose this small substance of masculine equality, for there is no gulf so unbridgeable between man and man as a different standard of honour.

But after all, she asked herself, what did it matter? He need not know; she would pay, fulfilling her word, and proving her father an honest man (which he was not); the debtor could not know how it was done. And if he did, what then? If she told him herself—he would know no other way—she would do it deliberately with the set purpose of tarring him with the same brush; she would show him how his attempt on Herr Van de Greutz might also be made to look. He would not be convinced, of course, but at bottom the two things were so related that it would be surprising if she did not get a few shafts home. He would not show the wounds then, but they would be there; they would rankle; there would be some humiliation for him, too. A curious light crept into her eyes at the thought; she was surer of being able to reduce him than of exalting herself, and it is good, when circumstances prevent one from mounting, to drag a superior to the level of one's humiliation. For a moment she understood something of the feelings of the brute mob that throws mud.

By this time she had reached the town, though almost without knowing it; so deep was she in her thoughts that she did not see Joost coming towards her. He had been to escort Denah, who had thoughtfully forgotten to provide herself with a cloak; he was now coming back, carrying the wrap his mother had lent her.

Julia started when she became aware of him just in front of her. She was not pleased to see him; she had no room for him in her mind just then; he seemed incongruous and out of place. She even looked at him a little suspiciously, as if she were afraid the fermenting thoughts in her brain might make themselves felt by him.

He turned and walked beside her. "I have been to take home Miss Denah," he explained. "I saw you a long way off, and thought perhaps I might escort you; but you are angry; I am sorry."

Julia could not forbear smiling at him. "I am not angry," she said, as she would to a child; "I was only thinking."

"Of something unpleasant, then, that makes you angry?"

"No; of something that must have been enjoyable. I was thinking how, in the French Revolution, the women of the people must have enjoyed throwing mud at the women of the aristocrats; how they must have liked scratching the paint and the skin from their faces, and tearing their hair down, and their clothes off."

Joost stared in amazement. "Do you call that not unpleasant?" he said. "It is the most grievous, the most pitiable thing in all the world."

"For the aristocrats, yes," Julia agreed; "but for the others? Can you not imagine how they must have revelled in it?"

Joost could not; he could not imagine anything violent or terrible, and Julia went on to ask him another question, which, however, she answered herself.

"Do you know why the women of the people did it? It was not only because the others had food and they had not; I think it was more because the aristocrats had a thousand other things that they had not, and could never have—feelings, instincts, pleasures, traditions—which they could not have had or enjoyed even if they had been put in palaces and dressed like queens. It was the fact that they could never, never rise to them, that helped to make them so furious to pull all down."

There was a sincerity of conviction in her tone, but Joost only said, "You cannot enjoy to think of such things; it is horrible and pitiable to remember that human creatures became so like beasts."

Julia's mood altered. "Pitiable, yes; perhaps you are right. After all, we are pitiful creatures, and, under the thin veneer, like enough to the beasts." Then she changed the subject abruptly, and began to talk of his flowers.

But he was not satisfied with the change; instinctively he felt she was talking to his level. "Why do you always speak to me of bulbs and plants?" he said. "Do you think I am interested in nothing else?"

"No," she said; "I speak of them because I am interested. Do you not believe me? It is quite true; you yourself have said that I should make a good florist; already I have learnt a great deal, although I have not been here long, and knew nothing before I came."

"That is so," he admitted; "you are very clever. Nevertheless, I do not think, if you were alone now, you would be thinking of plants. You were not when I met you; it was the Revolution, or, perhaps, human nature—you called it the Revolution in a parable, as you often do when you speak your thoughts."

"Why do you trouble about my thoughts?" Julia said, impatiently. "How do you know what I think?"

"Perhaps I don't," he answered; "only sometimes it seems to me your voice tells me though your words do not."

"My voice?"

"Yes; it is full of notes like a violin, and speaks more than words. I suppose all voices have many notes really, but people do not often use them; they use only a few. You use many; that is why I like to listen to you when you talk to my parents, or any one. It is like a master playing on an instrument; you make simple words mean much, more than I understand sometimes; you can caress and you can laugh with your voice; I have heard you do it when I have not been able to understand what you caress, or at what you laugh, any more than an ignorant person can understand what the violin says, although he may enjoy to hear it. To-night you do not caress or laugh; there is something black in your thoughts."

"That is human nature, as you say," Julia said shortly, ignoring the comment on her voice. "Human nature is a hateful, ugly thing; there is no use in thinking about it."

"It has certainly fallen," Joost allowed; "but I have sometimes thought perhaps, if it were not so, it would be a little—a very little—monotonous."

"You would not find it dull," Julia told him. "I believe you would not have got on very well in the Garden of Eden, except that, since all the herbs grew after their own kind, there would be no opportunity to hybridise them."

But the mystery of production and generation, even in the vegetable world, was not a subject that modesty permitted Joost to discuss with a girl. His manner showed it, to her impatient annoyance, as he hastily introduced another aspect of man's first estate. "If we were not fallen," he added, "we should have no opportunity to rise. That, indeed, would be a loss; is it not the struggle which makes the grand and fine characters which we admire?"

"I don't admire them," Julia returned; "I admire the people who are born good, because they are a miracle."

He stopped to unfasten the gate; it did not occur to him that she was thinking of himself.

"I cannot agree with you," he said, as they went up the drive together. "Rather, I admire those who have fought temptation, who are strong, who know and understand and have conquered; they inspire me to try and follow. What inspiration is there in the other? Consider Miss Denah, for an example; she has perhaps never wanted to do more wrong than to take her mother's prunes, but is there inspiration in her? She is as soft and as kind as a feather pillow, and as inspiring. But you—you told me once you were bad; I did not believe you; I did not understand, but now I know your meaning. You have it in your power to be bad or to be good; you know which is which, for you have seen badness, and know it as men who live see it. You have fought with it and conquered; you have struggled, you do struggle, you have strength in you. That is why you are like a lantern that is sometimes bright and sometimes dim, but always a beacon."

"I am nothing of the sort," Julia said sharply. They were in the dense shadow of the trees, so he could not see her face, but her voice sounded strange to him. "You do not know what you are talking about," she said; "hardly in my life have I asked myself if a thing is right or wrong—do you understand me? Right and wrong are not things I think about."

"It is quite likely," he said, serenely; "different persons have different names for the same things, as you have once said; one calls it 'honourable' and 'dishonourable,' and another 'right' and 'wrong,' and another 'wise' and 'unwise.' But it is always the same thing; it means to choose the more difficult path that leads to the greater end, and leave the other way to the lesser and smaller souls."

Julia caught her breath with a little gasping choke. Joost turned and looked at her, puzzled at last; but though they had now reached the house, and the lamplight shone on her, he could make out nothing; she brushed past him and went in quickly.

The next day Joost started for Germany. It rained more or less all day, and Julia did not go out, except for half-an-hour during the morning, when she was obliged to go marketing. She met Denah bound on the same errand, and heard from her, what she knew already, that she would not be able to come and superintend the crochet that day. And being in a black and reckless mood, she had the effrontery to laugh a silent, comprehending little laugh in the face of the Dutch girl's elaborate explanations. Denah was a good deal annoyed, and, though her self-esteem did not allow her to realise the full meaning of the offence, she did not forget it.

Julia went home with her purchases, and spent the rest of the day in the usual small occupations. It was an interminably long day she found. She contrived to hide her feelings, however, and behaved beautifully, giving the suitable attention and suitable answers to all Mevrouw's little remarks about the weather, and Joost's wet journey (though, since he was in the train, Julia could not see that the wet mattered to him), and about Mijnheer's cold, which was very bad indeed.

The day wore on. Julia missed Joost's presence at meals; they were not in the habit of talking much to each other at such times, it is true, but she always knew when she talked to his parents that he was listening, and putting another and fuller interpretation on her words. That was stimulating and pleasant too; it was a new form of intercourse, and she did not pretend she did not enjoy it for itself, as well as for the opportunity it gave her of probing his mind and trying different ideas on him.

At last dinner was over, and tea; the tea things were washed, and the long-neglected fancy work brought out. A clock in the passage struck the hour when, of late, after an exhilirating verbal skirmish with the anxious Denah, she had set out for the village and Rawson-Clew.

She did not pretend to herself that she did not enjoy that too, she did immensely; there was a breath from the outside world in it; there was sometimes the inspiring clash of wits, of steel on steel, always the charm of educated intercourse and quick comprehension. To-night there was nothing; no exercise to stir the blood, no solitude to stimulate the imagination, no effort of talk or understanding to rouse the mind. Nothing but to sit at work, giving one-eighth of attention to talk with Mevrouw—more was not needed, and the rest to the blue daffodils that lay securely locked up in a place only too well known.

Evening darkened, grey and dripping, to-night, supper-getting time came, and the hour for locking up the barns. Mijnheer, snuffling and wheezing a good deal, put on a coat, a mackintosh, a comforter, a pair of boots and a pair of galoshes; took an umbrella, the lantern, a great bunch of keys, and went out. Julia watched him go, and said nothing; she had been the rounds a good many times with Joost now; the family had talked about it more than once, and about her bravery with regard to rats and robbers. Neither of the old people would have been surprised if she had volunteered to go in place of Mijnheer, even if his cold had not offered a reason for such a thing. But she did not do it; he went alone, and the blue daffodil bulbs lay snug in their locked place.

The next day it still rained, but a good deal harder. There was a sudden drop in the temperature, too, such as one often finds in an English summer. The Van Heigens did not have a fire on that account, their stoves always kept a four months' sabbath; the advent of a snow-storm in July would not have been allowed to break it. Mijnheer's cold was decidedly worse; towards evening it grew very bad. He came in early from the office, and sat and shivered in the sitting-room with Julia and his wife, who was continuing the crochet unaided, and so laying up much future work for Denah. At last it was considered dark enough for the lamp to be lighted. Julia got up and lit it, and drew the blind, shutting out the grey sheet of the canal and the slanting rain.

"Dear me," Mevrouw said once again, "how bad the rain must be for Joost!"

Julia agreed, but reminded her—also once again—that it was possibly not raining in Germany.

Mijnheer looked up from his paper to remark that the weather was very bad for the crops.

"It is bad for every one," his wife rejoined; "but worse of all for you. You should be in bed. Indeed, it is not fit that you should be up; the house is like a cellar this evening."

Mijnheer did not suggest the remedy of a fire; he, too, shared the belief that stoves should not be lighted before the appointed time; he only protested at the idea of bed. "Pooh!" he said. "Make myself an invalid with Joost away! Will you go and nurse my nose, and put plasters on my chest? Go to bed now, do you say? No, no, my dear, I will sit here; I am comfortable enough; I read my paper, I smoke my cigar; by and by, I go out to see that my barns are all safe for the night."

But at this Mevrouw gave an exclamation; the idea of his going out in such weather was terrible, she said, and she said it a good many times.

Julia bent over her work; she heard the swish of the rain on the window, the uneven sob of the fitful wind; she heard the old people talk, the husband persist, the wife protest. She did not look up; her eyes were fixed on her needle, but she hardly saw it; more plainly she saw the dark barns, the crowded shelves, the place where the blue daffodils were. She could find them with perfect ease; could choose one in the dark as easily as Mijnheer himself; she could substitute for it another, one of the common sort of the same shape and size; no one would be the wiser; even when it bloomed, with the simple yellow flower that has beautified spring woods so long, no one would know it was not a sport of nature, a throw back to the original parent. It was the simplest thing in all the world; the safest. Not that that recommended it; she would rather it had been difficult or dangerous, it would have savoured more of a fair fight and less of trickery. Besides, such safety was nothing; anything can be made safe with care and forethought.

She caught her own name in the talk now; husband and wife were speaking lower, evidently arguing as to the propriety of asking her to go the rounds; for a moment she pretended not to hear, then she raised her head, contempt for her own weakness in her mind. It is not opportunity that makes thieves of thinking folk, and she knew it; rather it is the thief that makes opportunity, if he is up to his work. Why should she be afraid to go to the barns? She would not take the daffodil the more for going; if she meant to do it, and, through cowardice, let this opportunity slip, she would soon find another. And if she did not mean to, the proximity of the thing would not make her take it.

She put down her work. "I will lock up for you, Mijnheer; give me the keys."

He protested, and his wife protested, much more feebly, and thanked her for going the while. They gave her many directions, and told her she must put on this, that, and the other, and must be careful not to get her feet wet, and really need not to be too particular in examining all the doors. She answered them with impatient politeness, as one does who is waiting for the advent of a greater matter; she was not irritated by the trivial interruptions which came between her and the decision which was yet to be made; it was somehow so great to her that it seemed as if it could wait. At last she was off, Mijnheer's galoshes wallowing about her feet, his black-caped mackintosh thrown round her shoulders. She had neither hat nor umbrella. Mevrouw literally wailed when she started; but it made no impression, she came of the nation most indifferent to getting wet, and most-susceptible to death by consumption of any in Europe.

She slopped along in the great galoshes, her back to the lighted house now, her face to the dark barns. There they were, easily accessible, waiting for her. Was she to take one, or was she not? She did not give herself any excuse for taking it, or tell herself that one out of six was not much; or that Joost, could he know the case, would not have grudged her one of his precious bulbs. There was only one thing she admitted—it was there, and her need for it was great. With it she could pay a debt that was due, show her father an honourable man, and, seeing that the affair could always remain secret, raise herself nearer to Rawson-Clew's level. Without it she could not.

She had come to the first barn now, and, unbarring the door, went in. Almost oppressive came the dry smell of the bulbs to her; very familiar, too, as familiar as the distorted shadows that her lantern made. Together they brought vividly to her mind the first time she went the rounds with Joost—the night when she told him she was bad, the worst person he knew. Poor Joost, he had interpreted her words his own way; she remembered very plainly what he said but two nights ago—right and wrong, honourable and dishonourable, wise and unwise, they meant the same thing to different people, the choosing of the higher, the leaving of the lower—and he believed no less of her. That belief, surely, was a thing that fought on the side of the angels? And then there was that other man, able, well-bred, intellectual, her superior, who had treated her as an equal, and so tacitly demanded that she should conform to his code of honour. And there was Johnny Gillat, poor, old round-faced Johnny, who, under his silly, shabby exterior, had somewhere, quite understood, the same code, and standard of a gentleman, and never doubted but that she had it too—surely these two, also, were on the side of the angels?

But it was not a matter of angels, neither was it a matter of this man's thought, or that. At bottom, it seemed all questions could be brought to plain terms—What do I think? I, alone in the big, black, contradictory world. Julia realised it, and asked herself what it mattered if he, if they, if all the world called it wrong? What—pitiless, logical question—was wrong? Why should to take in one case be so called, and in another not? By whose word, and by what law was a thing thus, and why was she to submit to it?

She faced the darkness, the lantern at her feet, her back against the shelves, and asked herself the world-old question; and, like many before her, found no answer, because logic, merciless solvent of faith and hope and law, never answers its own riddles. Only, as she stood there, there rose up before her mind's eye the face of Joost, with its simple gravity, its earnest, trusting blue eyes. She saw it, and she saw the humble dignity with which he had shown her his six bulbs. Not as a proud possessor shows a treasure, rather as an adept shares some secret of his faith or art; so had he placed them in her power, given her a chance to so use this trust. She almost groaned aloud as she recalled him, and recalled, sorely against her will, a horrible tale she had once read, of a Brahmin who murdered a little child for her worthless silver anklets. Joost was a veritable child to her, powerless before her ability, trusting in her good faith, a child indeed, even if he had not placed his secret in her grasp. And it was he—this child—that she, with her superior strength, was going to rob!

She shivered. Why was he not Rawson-Clew? Why could not he take better care of himself and his possessions? She could have done it with a light heart then; there would have been a semblance of fight in it; but now—now it could not be done. Logic, the pitiless solvent, has no action on those old long-transmitted instincts; it may argue with, but it cannot destroy, those vague yearnings of the natural man towards righteousness. Julia did not argue, she only obeyed; she did not know why.

She picked up the lantern, and moved to go; as she did so, the barn door, lightly fastened, blew open. A rush of rain and wind swept in, the smell of the wet earth, and the sight of the tossing trees, and massed clouds that fled across the sky. For a moment she stood and looked, hearing the wild night voices, the sob of the wet wind, the rustle and mutter of the trees—those primitive inarticulate things that do not lie. And in her heart she felt very weary of shams and pretences, very hungry for the rest of reality and truth. She turned away, and made the round of the barns systematically, and without haste; she did not hurry past the resting-place of the blue daffodils, they were safe from her now and always.

It was not till some weeks later that she saw, and not then without also seeing it was quite impossible to disprove the proposition, that there was something grimly absurd in the idea which had possessed her that night—the thought of stealing to prove a lie, and acting dishonourably to pay a debt of honour. At the time she did not think at all, she acted on instinct only. Thank God for those dumb instincts, making for righteousness, which, in spite of theologians, are implanted somewhere in the heart of man.

So she went the rounds, fastened the barns, and came out of the last one, locking the door after her. Outside, she stood a second, the rain falling upon her bare head, the wind blowing her cloak about her. And she did not feel triumphant or victorious, nor reluctant and contemptuous of her weakness; only somehow apart and alone, and very, very tired.



CHAPTER VIII

POOFERCHJES AND JEALOUSY

The Polkingtons were launching out; not ostentatiously with expensive entertainments or anything striking, but in all small ways, scarcely noticeable except in general effect, but none the less expensive. They could not afford it; the past nine months had been very difficult, first the Captain's unfortunate misuse of the cheque, then Violet's engagement and the necessary entertainment that it involved, and then her wedding. Financially they were in a very bad way, but that did not prevent them spending—or owing—in a rather lordly fashion. Mrs. Polkington with one daughter married, and another safely out of the way, seemed determined to take the field well with the remaining one. Cherie was quite ready to second the effort, indeed, she was the instigator; she was not only the prettiest of the sisters, but also the most ease loving, and though ambitious, less clever than the others, and a great deal more short-sighted. She had for some time ceased to be content with the position at Marbridge and the society there; she wanted to be recognised by the "county." This desire had been growing of late, for there had been a very eligible and attractive bachelor addition to that charmed circle, and he had more than once looked admiration her way. She and her mother went to work well and spared neither time nor trouble; not much result could be expected during the summer months, little done then except get ready—an expensive proceeding. It was when September brought people home for the partridge shooting and October's pheasants kept them there till hunting began, that they expected their success and the return for their outlay, and they were quite content to wait for it.

Their plans and doings were naturally not confided to any one, not even Julia; she heard seldom from Marbridge; the family feelings were of a somewhat utilitarian order, based largely on mutual benefit. She wrote now and then; she happened to do so on the day after the one on which she did not take the blue daffodil; and she mentioned in this letter that it was possible she should be home again soon. Seeing that she had decided the daffodil was unobtainable she saw little reason for staying longer; this of course she did not mention when she wrote. Somewhat to her surprise she got an almost immediate reply to her letter.

It would not suit Mrs. Polkington and Cherie to have Julia back soon at all; it is always easier to swim socially with one daughter than two, especially if the second is not good-looking. Also, Julia, cautious, long-headed and capable, was certain to criticise their proceedings and do her best to interfere with them. She would be wrong in her judgments, of course, and they right; they were sure of that, but they did not want the trouble of attempting to convert her, and anyhow, they felt they could do much better without her, and Mrs. Polkington wrote and intimated as much politely. She gave several excellent reasons, all of which were perfectly transparent to Julia, though that did not matter, seeing that she was sufficiently hurt in her feelings, or her pride, to at once determine to fulfil her mother's wishes and do anything rather than go where she was not wanted.