He was not careful, but the waterman had him now, and took him ashore. She watched him, his round face was suffused with smiles; he waved his hat once more just as he reached the stairs. He slipped once getting up them, but he was up now, and turned to wave once before he started down the street.
It was not till then that Julia became aware of a small sound close at hand; there was a good deal of noise going on, shouting, the rattling of cranes, and the thud of shifting bales, with now and then the hoot of a steamer and the escape of steam, and under all, the restless lapping of the water. But through it all she now heard a much smaller sound quite close, a regular tick, tick. She glanced at the parcel she had forgotten, then in an instant, as a sudden idea occurred to her, she had the paper off. Yes, it was. It was Johnny's great old-fashioned gold watch, with the fetter chain dangling at the end.
She stood quite still with the thing in her hand, her mouth set straight, and her eyes growing glitteringly bright. The round gilded face stared up at her, reminding her in some grotesque way of Johnny; poor, generous, honest, foolish old Johnny! She looked away quickly, a sudden desire not to go with this moon-faced companion took possession of her—a desire not to go at all, a horrible new-born doubt about it.
But feelings for abstract right and wrong, like personal likes and dislikes, do not grow strongly where expediency and advisability and advantage have to rule; she was only going to do what she must in Holland; the debt must be paid, honour demanded no less; the blue daffodil was the only hope of paying it. She was not going to steal a bulb exactly; she was going to get it somehow, as a gift, perhaps, opportunity must show how; and when it was hers, she could do with it as she pleased, there was no wrong in that. She must go; she must do it; the thing was so necessary as to be unavoidable, and not open to question. She looked down, and her eye fell on the watch again; it stared up at her in the same vacant way as Johnny had done that day when he wanted to sell it and his other things to help them out of their justly earned, sordid difficulties. With shame she had prevented that, feeling the cause unworthy of the sacrifice. But this sacrifice, for a still more unworthy cause, she was too late to prevent. Johnny had gone. She looked earnestly to see if he was among those who loitered about the stairs, or those in the more distant street. But she could not see him, he was gone clean from sight; there was only the busy, unfamiliar life of the river around; yellow, sunlit water; the crowded craft, and the great stately wonder of the Tower Bridge silently raising and parting its solid roadway to let some boat go, as she would soon go down to the sea.
CHAPTER IV
THE OWNER OF THE BLUE DAFFODIL
Vrouw Snieder, the notary's wife, sat by her window at work on a long strip of red crochet lace. From her place she could see all who came up the street, and, there being a piece of looking-glass set outside, at right angles to the pane, also most who came down it. This, though doubtless very informing, did not help the progress of the lace; but that was of no consequence, Mevrouw always had some red lace in making, and it might as well be one piece as another. With her, were her two daughters, Denah and Anna, though Anna had no business there, being supposed just then to be preparing vegetables for dinner. She had only come into the room to fetch keys, but a remark from her mother brought her to the window.
"There goes Vrouw Van Heigen's English miss," the old lady said, and both her daughters looked at once.