ack the carnations, and then unthinkingly put his hand into
his coat-pocket. His fingers came in contact with some dry rubbish,
little more than stalks and dust, but still exhaling something of the
fragrance which had been sun distilled on the Dunes. He recognised it
now--Julia's flowers, put there in the wood, and forgotten until now.

"Thanks so much for cutting them," said the girl with the carnations,
smelling them before she fastened them on again. "I really think they
are my favourite flower; the scent is so delicious--quite the nicest
flower of all, don't you think so?"

"I'm not sure," Rawson-Clew said thoughtfully, and when he spoke
thoughtfully he drawled very much, "I'm not sure I don't sometimes
prefer wild thyme."

CHAPTER XII

THE YOUNG COOK

It was about ten o'clock on an October night; everything was intensely
quiet in the big kitchen where Julia stood. It was not a cheerful
place even in the day time, the windows looked north, and were very
high up; the walls and floor were alike of grey stone, which gave it a
prison-like aspect, and also took much scrubbing, as she had reason to
know. It was far too large a place to be warmed by the small stove now
used; Julia sometimes wondered if the big one that stood empty in its
place would have been sufficient to warm it. She glanced at it now,
but without interest; she was very tired, it was almost bed-time, and
she had done, as she had every day since she first joined Herr Van de
Greutz's household, a very good day's work. She had scarcely been
outside the four walls since she first came there on the day after the
holiday on the Dunes. This had been her own choice, for, unlike all
the cooks who had been before her, she had asked for no evenings out.
Marthe, the short-tempered housekeeper, had not troubled herself to
wonder why, she had been only too pleased to accept the arrangement
without comment. Apart from the self-chosen confinement, the life had
been hard enough; the work was hard, the service hard and ill-paid,
and both the other inmates of the house cross-grained, and difficult
to please. These things, however, Julia did not mind; discomfort never
mattered much to her when she had an end in view; in this case, too,
the end should more than repay the worst of her two task-masters.
Which was agreeable, and almost made his unpleasantness desirable, as
providing her intended act with a justification.

She drew the coffee pot further on to the