"Well," I continued, "if a woman had asked you to give her her cab fare home—a woman drenched to the skin, sheltering in a doorway, shivering in the cold at one o'clock at night—what would you do?"
"Naturally—if you put it that way, sir—but it's against my principles, and, what's more, I'm never out at one o'clock at night, I make a point of being in by half-past eleven."
This was too evasive for me. So far as his principles are concerned, I know all about them. A man who supports his mother and two sisters out of his earnings has every right to talk about it being against his principles to help a woman in distress; but there is no special call upon one to believe him. I fancy myself that when, in a moment of confidence, Moxon told me that women as a rule do not take to him, it is that he wishes to hide his affection for the whole sex. I quite agree with him. If I had any affection for the sex, I should try to hide it myself.
But all this was really beside the point. One thing, and one thing only, was in full occupation of my mind—the last words that little half-drowned mouse had said to me before she went. "She'll thank you for it one day."
A vision of Clarissa thanking me grew formlessly into my mind. I gazed over Dandy's head into the fire. She was there. There was her little gown of canary-colored satin, the very shade of it, leaping and dancing with all the joy that I had brought. A very silly dream! I tried to put it out of my head. I turned to Moxon, asking him if ever in the course of our travels we had been to Ballysheen. He shook his head.
"Where is it, sir?"
"In Ireland."
He shook his head again.
"Why does it sound familiar to me then?" I asked.
He assumed the attitude of a Prime Minister in deep thought. I cannot say that I know what that attitude is; but it was the attitude I fancy I should assume if I were asked to play the part of a Prime Minister in an advertising world. It impressed me immensely. I felt that his mind was working at a Herculean task. It lasted a good two minutes. Dandy and I watched him with keen interest all the time. So much were we wrought up to the pitch in fact, that when it was all over and Moxon suddenly made a swift movement towards my desk, Dandy rushed at him, barking loudly. It says much for the histrionic powers of Moxon. I could have made some similar exhibition of emotion myself, but I am more reserved.