"I expect I shall hear of you next playing the martyr for moral ideals," Muller said, with a slight curl of the lip.
"That seems to be the next item on the programme," Rufus answered, quietly; "for, after all, what is honesty—the just payment of debts—but a moral ideal."
"It belongs to that code of honour certainly that civilised peoples have shaped for themselves."
"Then you think I am bound to my pledge by nothing more weighty than that?"
"What could be more weighty? You could not escape from it without—without—but why discuss the impossible? You are a man of honour, that is enough."
"And when is the latest you would like the money, Muller?"
"It will need a month or two to clear up things," he said, evasively.
"And if I am too precipitate I might be suspected?"
"Exactly. You cannot be too wary. Companies have grown suspicious. There have been so many attempts of late to cheat them, and, of course, in the eye of the law robbing a company stands in precisely the same category as robbing an individual."