She raised her head and looked at the flat, wet landscape with unseeing eyes that were contemptuous.  How different two not dissimilar acts could be made to look!  If she took the daffodil—­and she would have unique opportunity to try during the next two days—­Rawson-Clew would regard her as little better than a common thief; that is, if he happened to know about it.  She winced a little as she thought of the faint expression of surprise the knowledge would call up in his impassive face and cold grey eyes.  She could well imagine the slight difference in his manner to her afterwards, scarcely noticeable to the casual observer, impossible to be overlooked by her.  She told herself she did not care what he thought; but she did.  Pride was grasping at a desired, but impossible, equality with this man, and here, were the means used only known, was the nearest way to lose it.  At times he had forgotten the gap of age and circumstances between them—­really forgotten it, she knew, not only ignored it in his well-bred way.  He had for a moment really regarded her as an equal; not, perhaps, as he might the women of his class, rather the men of like experience and attainments with himself.  That was not what she wanted, but she recognised plainly that in grasping at a shadowy social feminine equality by paying the debt, she might well lose this small substance of masculine equality, for there is no gulf so unbridgeable between man and man as a different standard of honour.

But after all, she asked herself, what did it matter?  He need not know; she would pay, fulfilling her word, and proving her father an honest man (which he was not); the debtor could not know how it was done.  And if he did, what then?  If she told him herself—­he would know no other way—­she would do it deliberately with the set purpose of tarring him with the same brush; she would show him how his attempt on Herr Van de Greutz might also be made to look.  He would not be convinced, of course, but at bottom the two things were so related that it would be surprising if she did not get a few shafts home.  He would not show the wounds then, but they would be there; they would rankle; there would be some humiliation for him, too.  A curious light crept into her eyes at the thought; she was surer of being able to reduce him than of exalting herself, and it is good, when circumstances prevent one from mounting, to drag a superior to the level of one’s humiliation.  For a moment she understood something of the feelings of the brute mob that throws mud.

By this time she had reached the town, though almost without knowing it; so deep was she in her thoughts that she did not see Joost coming towards her.  He had been to escort Denah, who had thoughtfully forgotten to provide herself with a cloak; he was now coming back, carrying the wrap his mother had lent her.

Julia started when she became aware of him just in front of her.  She was not pleased to see him; she had no room for him in her mind just then; he seemed incongruous and out of place.  She even looked at him a little suspiciously, as if she were afraid the fermenting thoughts in her brain might make themselves felt by him.