"Why have you been making her cry?" she said. "Surely she's weak enough without distressing her like that!"
Upon my soul I felt a fool. The man who is swayed between two emotions is bound to fall between them and look ridiculous. I wanted to turn the detestable woman out of the house straight away. On the other hand, there was Clarissa crying her heart out, and I knew well enough it was bad for her.
"Will you kindly go now?" she continued. "I can't have my patient unset like this."
I went, as quietly too as I had come. But when I got downstairs I could have cheerfully kicked anything that came in my way. It was a bad prospect for Moxon. I nearly slammed the door as I came in, but remembered just in time. At a violent strain I caught it just before it closed.
Things cut both ways in life. At least that is what I find. This little burst of irritation went far towards making it easier for me to tell Moxon. I flung the information at him then.
"Now," said I, when I had finished, "if this sort of establishment has become one with which you have no desire to be connected, don't hesitate to say so. I don't know when the child will be born—nobody knows. It's supposed to be in three months' time; but however long it is, if it were the whole nine months, Miss Fawdry would still stay here under my protection till it was over. To begin with, she's ill. She can't be moved. And when she's well again the position will be no different. I tell you this plainly, because I don't want there to be any misunderstanding. Of course, when she's well again she may say that she doesn't wish to stay. That'll be a different matter. I shall do my best to persuade her, and so long as she's here under these circumstances she's Mrs. Bellairs. Now, you've heard this, if you don't want to stay on I'd sooner you said so. I know your ideas about this sort of thing. You remember my asking you that night last April, when I sent you to fetch a taxi for that woman who was drenched with rain, you remember my asking you if you would refuse to help a woman in trouble."
"Do you happen to remember my answer, sir?"
"Well,"—upon my soul, for the minute, it had gone clean out of my mind—"I don't remember the exact words," said I. "I fancy you disapproved."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think I remarked that to my knowledge I hadn't said nothing about no woman."
I suppose if two negatives make an affirmative, one may take it that three in the ordinary course of progression revert to the former order of things. He had said nothing about a woman. I did remember that. I remembered also how that tactful observation had nonplussed me. It had much the same effect now. I felt that I was losing ground, and dignity with it too; for dignity, after all, is only the ground you stand upon. There was only one thing to do, to return as quickly as possible to what I had been saying.