"He paid five pounds for a speculation," Julia said; "your guarantee was nothing, and though he may have asked for it, it was just a form and did not count one way or the other. He knew there was a chance that you had come by the true bulb somehow and so had it to sell; he risked five pounds on that--and lost it."
Captain Polkington looked bewildered. "He paid five pounds for the bulb," he persisted; "he said it was worth no more to him."
"Very likely not, if he could get it for that," Julia said; "but if he could have been sure of it, it would have been worth two hundred pounds."
"Two hundred!" Captain Polkington gasped, turning rather white.
Julia nodded. "With my guarantee," she said. "You had not got that; I suppose you let him see it when you wrote first so he knew that, though you might have the real bulb, you were not in a position to sell it well."
The Captain flushed as suddenly as he had paled. "You think he thought I had not come by it honestly, that I had no right in my daughter's affairs?"
"I don't see it matters what he thought," Julia answered, taking up the dishes. "He risked his money, and lost it, knowing very well what he did; he does not mind doing business in that way; I don't admire it myself, but I guessed he would do it when I first made his acquaintance."
"I have nothing to do with it, and shall have nothing."
"But the money must be paid; it is a debt of honour; I must clear myself."
"You do not wish me cleared?" her father demanded haughtily.
"Paying the five pounds would not clear you," she said; "neither that nor anything else. No, I am not going to pay it; I don't feel any obligation in the matter. If Mr. Cross goes in for those sort of dealings he must put up with the consequence, and I am afraid you must, too." And with that she went away.
This was the last reference that was made to the sale of the daffodil and the expedition to town; after that the matter was left out of conversation and Julia behaved as if it had never existed. But Captain Polkington was very unhappy; he could not get over the affair and his own failure; he brooded over it in silence, feeling and resenting that he could not speak to either Johnny or Julia, they being quite unable to understand his emotions. Once or twice he raged weakly against Cross, who had given him five pounds when he had asked twenty for a thing worth two hundred; who had doubted his word, who had behaved as if he were a common thief--who would, doubtless, think him one. More often his indignation burnt up against Julia who would do nothing to remedy this last catastrophe, and clear him and reinstate his honour in the eyes of this man and himself. Most often of all his quarrel was with fate, and then his anger broke down into self-pity as he thought of all the troubles that were crowding about his later years; of his lost reputation, his lack of sympathy and comprehension; the failure of all his plans and hopes, the poverty and feeble health that oppressed him. In these gloomy days he had one ray of comfort only; it lay in the purchase he had made on that day that he went shopping. That whisky was the solitary thing in the day's adventure about which Julia had not heard; everything else she had been told, but somehow that had escaped. One reason of this, no doubt, lay in the fact that Captain Polkington had not brought his purchase home with him that evening. He had meant to; when the carrier set him and his property down just outside Halgrave, he had fully meant to carry it to the cottage. But he found it so heavy and cumbersome in his weak and dejected state that he had to give it up. So he found a suitable hiding-place in the deep overgrown ditch beside the road, and, thrusting it as much out of sight as he could, left it there and went home unburdened. He meant to tell Julia and Johnny about it, they of course were to have shared, and one or both of them would go with him to fetch it home in the morning. But he did not tell them; it did not seem suitable at first; they, each in a different way, were too unsympathetic about the expedition to town; he determined to wait for a fitting opportunity. The opportunity did not come; but in course of time the whisky was moved and gave comfort of sorts during the autumn days to the Captain's drooping spirits, if it had a less beneficial effect on his failing health.