She watched him, his round face was suffused with smiles; he waved his
hat once more just as he reached the stairs. He slipped once getting
up them, but he was up now, and turned to wave once before he started
down the street.
It was not till then that Julia became aware of a small sound close at
hand; there was a good deal of noise going on, shouting, the rattling
of cranes, and the thud of shifting bales, with now and then the hoot
of a steamer and the escape of steam, and under all, the restless
lapping of the water. But through it all she now heard a much smaller
sound quite close, a regular _tick_, _tick_. She glanced at the parcel
she had forgotten, then in an instant, as a sudden idea occurred to
her, she had the paper off. Yes, it was. It was Johnny's great
old-fashioned gold watch, with the fetter chain dangling at the end.
She stood quite still with the thing in her hand, her mouth set
straight, and her eyes growing glitteringly bright. The round gilded
face stared up at her, reminding her in some grotesque way of Johnny;
poor, generous, honest, foolish old Johnny! She looked away quickly, a
sudden desire not to go with this moon-faced companion took possession
of her--a desire not to go at all, a horrible new-born doubt about it.
But feelings for abstract right and wrong, like personal likes and
dislikes, do not grow strongly where expediency and advisability and
advantage have to rule; she was only going to do what she must in
Holland; the debt must be paid, honour demanded no less; the blue
daffodil was the only hope of paying it.
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