He followed her obediently, but asked what it was he was to see.

“The blue daffodil, of course,” she said.

He stopped dead.  “You have got it here?” he exclaimed.  “You have not sold it?”

“Certainly not.”

“But why—­why?” he stared at her in amazement.  “You wanted money, it was for that you wanted the bulb, to sell; you told me so.  Do you not want money now?”

“Oh, yes,” Julia said; “but that is an incurable disease hereditary in our family.”

“You do want money?” he inquired mystified.  “This inheritance is small, not enough?  Why, then, did you not sell the bulb?”

Julia shrugged her shoulders.  “I could not very well,” she said.

“But why not?  You thought to do so at one time; your intention was to sell it if you had—­”

“Stolen it?  Yes, that is quite true, and it would not have mattered then.  If I had stolen it I might as well have sold it; one dishonourable act feels lonely without another; it generally begets another to keep itself company.”

Joost looked at her uncomprehendingly.  “But why,” he persisted, clinging to the one thing he did understand, “why did you not sell it?  It was for that I gave it to you, to do with as you pleased; I knew you would do only what was right and necessary.”

Julia could have smiled a little at this last word; it seemed as if even Joost had learnt to temper right with necessity to suit her dealings, but she only said, “That was one reason why I could not sell it.  You expected me to do right, so I was obliged to do it; faith begets righteousness as dishonour begets dishonour.”

“I do not quite understand,” he began, but she cut him short.

“No,” she said; “we always found it difficult to make things quite plain, it is no use trying now.  Come and see the daffodil, you will understand that, at all events, and better than I do.  It is not quite fully out yet, but very nearly, and—­please don’t be disappointed—­it is not a real true blue daffodil at all.”

She took him to the chosen spot and showed him the plant—­a bunch of long narrow leaves rising from the brown earth, and in the midst of them a single stalk supporting a partly opened flower.  In shape it was single, like the common wild blossom, only much bigger; but in colour, not blue as was expected, but streaked in irregular unblended stripes of pure yellow and pure blue.  The marking was as hard and unshaded as that of the old-fashioned brown and yellow tulips which children call bulls’-eyes, and the effect, though bizarre, was not at all pretty.  Julia did not think it so, and she did not expect any one else to either; but Joost, when he saw the streaky flower, gave a little inarticulate exclamation and, dropping on his knees on the path, lifted the bell reverently so that he might look into it.