"Are you satisfied?" Rawson-Clew asked briefly.
"I'd sooner be able to see her," Johnny admitted. "I'm fond of her; yes, she's been very kind and good; I miss seeing her. But, of course, she has her way to make in the world."
"But are you satisfied that she should make it thus? That she should leave the Dutch family she was with and disappear, leaving no address?"
"Sir," Johnny said with dignity, "I am quite satisfied, and if any one says that he is not, I would be pleased to talk to him."
But the dignity left Mr. Gillat's manner as quickly as it came; before Rawson-Clew could say anything, he was apologising. "You must forgive me," he said; "I am very fond of that little girl; and I thought--but I had no business to think; I'm an old fool, to think you meant--"
"I only meant," Rawson-Clew said, speaking with unconscious gentleness, "that I was afraid she might be in difficulties. She may be in trouble about money, or something."
"Oh, no," Johnny said cheerfully; "she has a fine head for money matters. I have sometimes thought, since she has been gone, that she has the best head in the family! She's all right--quite right; there's no need to be uneasy about her. I'll show you the letter she wrote me."
He opened a shabby pocket-book, and took out a letter. "There, you read that," he said.
Rawson-Clew read, and at the end was little wiser. Julia said she had left one situation (reason not even suggested), and had got another. That she did not wish to give her new address, or to hear from Mr. Gillat, or her family, at this new place, as it might spoil her arrangements. Rawson-Clew recognised the last word as a favourite of Julia's; with her it was elastic, and could mean anything, from a piece of lace arranged to fill up the neck of a dress, to a complex and far-reaching scheme arranged to bring about some desired end. What it meant in the present instance was not indicated, but clearly she did not wish for interference, and, with some wisdom, took the surest way to prevent it by making it well-nigh impossible. She had left one means of communication, however, though apparently that was for Johnny only. "If you and father get into any very great muddle," she wrote, "you must let me know. Put an advertisement--one word, 'Johnny,' will do--in a paper; I shall understand, and, if I can, I will try to do something." A paper was suggested; it was a cheap weekly. Rawson-Clew remembered to have seen it once in the small Dutch town that summer, so it was to be got there. Unfortunately, as he also remembered, it was to be got in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and Paris and Berlin too.