Gillat suffered with him, which was not just, though that did not seem
to occur to him. As for Julia, she minded least of any one, though in
some ways she had the most to put up with; but the plan was hers, and
consequently she was too interested in its success to trouble about
the inevitable discomforts of the working out.

There was one matter which did trouble her, however--the debt to
Rawson-Clew. She had no money, and no possibility of raising any; yet
it must and should be paid, for her father's name could not otherwise
be cleared. She turned over in her own mind how she could earn enough,
but there was little hope of that; it seemed rather a large sum for a
girl to earn, and any sum was impossible to her; she had no gifts to
take to market, no ability for any of the arts, not enough education
for teaching, no training for commerce. The only field open to her was
that of a nursery-governess or companion; neither was likely to enable
her to pay this debt of honour quickly. Once, nearly a year ago, she
had had a sort of half-offer of the post of companion. It was while
she was staying with a friend; during the visit there had come to the
house an old Dutchman of the name of Van Heigen, a business
acquaintance of her host. He had stayed nearly a week, and in that
time taken a great fancy to her.

In those first bad days after the Captain's leaving the army, the
Polkingtons had lived, or perhaps more accurately, drifted about, a
good deal abroad. It was then that Julia picked up her only
accomplishment, a working knowledge of several languages. She had also
acquired one other thing, perhaps not an accomplishment, a rather
unusual knowledge of divers men and divers ways. It may have been that
these qualities made her more attractive to the old Dutchman than the
purely English game-expert daughters of the house. Or it may have been