Cross was amused by her interest. "A hundred pounds, I dare say," he said; "but I shall never have the chance. The trade will never touch those blue daffodils while they are worth having. When the old man does begin to sell them--when they are worth very little to the growers--he will sell to collectors, cranky old connoisseurs, from choice. That's what I mean when I say he doesn't understand business as business; he would rather sell his precious blue daffodils where they were what he calls 'appreciated.' He would sooner they went for a moderate price to people who would worship them, than make an enormous profit out of them." "But the connoisseurs could sell them," Julia objected. "If I were a connoisseur and bought one when they were for sale, I could sell it to you if I liked." "Yes, but you wouldn't," Cross said; "if you were a connoisseur you would not dream of parting with your bulb. You wouldn't have the slightest wish to make a hundred per cent. on your purchase, or two or three hundred either. Also I shouldn't buy." "Why not?" "I couldn't afford to have my name mixed up with the business." Julia looked at him critically. "You could afford that the business should be done without your name?" she suggested. He laughed. "I could introduce the seller, did such an impossible person exist, to some one who could buy." It was Julia's turn to laugh, that soundless laugh of hers which gave the feeling of a joke only half shared. "For a consideration, of course," she said. "Something would naturally stick to my fingers," Cross answered, amused rather than offended. He was a good deal amused by his partner, finding her more interesting than most of the girls he met that evening; afterwards he forgot her, for two days later he left the place, and thought no more either about Miss Polkington or the talk he had had with her. As for her, it was not clear what she thought, but the next day she wrote to London for a second-hand Dutch dictionary, and then went to call at the house with the largest library that she knew. When she came away from there she carried with her a book she had borrowed, a Dutch version of _Gil Blas_, which she remembered to have once seen tucked away in a corner. Shortly afterwards, as soon as the dictionary came, she set to reading the edifying work, and found it easier than she expected. What one learns from necessity in childhood stays in the memory, and a good knowledge of German and a smallish one of Dutch will carry one through greater difficulties than _Gil Blas_. Before her mother and sisters came back to Marbridge, Julia had written to the old Dutchman.