the blue daffodil was a revelation
to me."

He laughed a little. "But one you'll try to profit by," he said.

The Captain moved in his chair. He could have groaned aloud at the
words, which represented precisely what Julia would not do.
Unfortunately his movement had much the same effect as his groan would
have done, some one on the other side of the door moved too, and in
the opposite direction. It must have been Julia, her father was sure
of it; it was like her to do it; she must have gone almost to the
window; he could not make out what was said. The man was no doubt
trying to buy the bulb; a stray word here and there indicated that,
but it was impossible to hear what offer was made. It was equally
impossible to hear what Julia said; her father only caught the
inflection of her voice, but he was sure she was refusing.

In disgust and anger he rose and, having pulled the jam to the side of
the fire, went into the garden. There he took the hoe and started
irritably to work on a bed near the front door; it was some relief to
his feelings to scratch the ground since he could not scratch anything
else.

In a little while Cross came out. "Well, if you won't, you won't," he
was saying as Julia opened the door. "I think you are making a
mistake; in fact, if you weren't a lady I should say you were acting
rather like a fool; but, of course, you must please yourself. If you
think better of it you can always write to me. Just name the price, a
reasonable price, that's all you need do. We understand one another,
and we can do business without any fuss--you have my address?"

He gave her a card as he spoke, although she assured him she should
not want it; then he took his leave.

She watched him go, tearing up the card when he had set off down the
road. Captain Polkington watched her.

"What did he want?" he asked, remembering that he was not supposed to
know.

"The bulb," she answered.

"And you would not sell it?"

"No."

She had come from the doorstep now to pull up some weeds he had
overlooked.

"I can't understand you, Julia," he said resting on his hoe, and
speaking as much in sorrow as in anger. "You seem to have so little
sense of honour--women so seldom have--but I should have thought that
you would have had a lesson on the necessity, the obligation of paying
debts. When you come to think of the efforts we are making to pay
those debts, how I am straining every nerve, giving almost the whole
of my inco