This depression lasted all that day and on into the next; indeed, for some time longer.  It lifted a little once in the course of a week, but not much, and soon settled down again, making the Captain very miserable, disinclined for work, and decidedly bad company.  Johnny thought he was not well, but Julia fancied his trouble had something to do with annoyance and the daffodil.  He did not confide in either of them, maintaining a proud and gloomy silence and nursing his grievance so that it grew.  For days he cherished his sense of injury and wrong, until it became large and took a good hold upon him.  Then, all at once, for no reason that one can give, a change came, and his mind, as if smitten by a gust of wind, began to veer about, to stir and lighten.  Why, he suddenly asked himself, was it that Julia would not sell the bulb?  Because—­the answer was so absurdly simple he wondered it had not occurred to him before—­because it was the Van Heigens’ present, and one cannot sell presents.  He perfectly understood the scruple, honoured it even; but he also saw quite plainly that, though it prevented her from selling the daffodil, it did not stand in the way of its being sold.  She could not, of course, authorise the sale, any more than she could conduct it; but that was no reason why she should not be very pleased to have it sold.  Indeed, not only was this a probability, practically a certainty, but more than likely she had had some such idea in her mind when she spoke of the matter to her father—­in all likelihood she was wondering now why he had not taken the hint.

Thus Captain Polkington reasoned, seeing light at last in the dimness of the depression which had possessed him.  Quite how much he really believed, or even if he were capable of real reasonable belief at this stage of his career, it is not easy to say.  It is possible he may have thought he was right for the time being; his conscience was capable of remarkable gymnastic feats at times.  It is also possible that he, like some others of the human race, was not really able to think at all.  Anyhow the depression that weighed upon him lifted, and he remembered with satisfaction that he had kept the torn fragments of Cross’ card.

In the early part of the summer the hyacinths, tulips, and finer narcissus had been taken out of the ground and put to dry.  Julia hoped by this means to get more and better flowers from them next year than is the case when they are left in the earth.  They took some time to dry and were not really ready till the summer was far advanced; but that did not matter to her, however it may have inconvenienced her father; she was too busy to attend to them earlier.  By the middle of August they were ready, and she set to cleaning them in her spare time with Johnny to help her.  He was proud and pleased to do so, and did not in the least mind the extreme irritation of the skin which befalls those who rub off the old loose husks.  A place was prepared for the bulbs in one of the sheds, the wide shelf cleared and partitions made in it by Mr. Gillat, who also spent some time in writing labels for each of the divisions.  Julia told him this was unnecessary as she knew by the shape which were hyacinths and which tulips; still he did it.  Captain Polkington did not offer any assistance; he merely looked on with indifferent interest; the matter did not seem to concern him.