What Davidina loved was power; and power economically exercised is a far subtler luxury than power which requires repeated effort to sustain it. Davidina by doing nothing had acquired power not material but spiritual; and ‘Thou, Davidina, seest me,’ became more truly the motto of his life day by day.
But the reason why Mr. Trimblerigg failed to read her motive while wincing under the results, was partly because power of so static a kind had no attraction for him whatever, and partly because it contradicted the fundamental notion of his whole scheme of life—that he was a man, namely, of virtuous character, one with a destiny of resplendent goodness lying ahead of him. Across that conception of himself Davidina’s contrary conception struck like cataract of the eye. The two views could not co-exist. Without his quite realizing it, Davidina’s reading of his character threatened to drive his own out.
In the privacy of his own chamber he had more than once sat down to write his own epitaph—the epitaph which he liked to think would appear on his entablature in that day when Free Churchmen had got the run of Westminster Abbey to burrow in. With the art of simplicity after much trouble he had boiled it down to three words, ‘Little—but good.’ And if that were to represent finally and truthfully his work on earth, what place was there for Davidina’s rival epitaph to stand, if, as he half-suspected, it found its expression in the words, ‘Good—for nothing.’
If I had made him good (and surely I had done that, he thought) was it to be ‘for nothing’ after all? Before he could believe that, he must give up his faith. And when he said ‘faith,’ he never understood that it meant, and meant only, faith in himself.
So silently, invisible, with imperceptible pace, mind against mind, Davidina tightened her grip.
One struggle to escape from the blast of her continued silence he made; but it was no good. New callers had come with their congratulations, and the story was to be repeated once more. Summoned to a fresh drench of ignominy under his sister’s calm gaze, Mr. Trimblerigg had a flash of inspiration. He laughed jovially. ‘Oh, I just pushed her into the water,’ he said; ‘so of course I had to go after her. I tried to save her; but Davidina preferred to save herself. And that’s all there was to it!’
The visitors laughed, thinking what a very charming and modest young man he was. And Davidina laughed too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He Tries to be Honest
DAVIDINA got over her cold without difficulty. But Mr. Trimblerigg, who from repeated immersion, had been in the water much longer and with opportunities for severe chills to take him between whiles, fell seriously ill.
It was with a sort of satisfaction that he took to his bed; for this at any rate was a genuine result of his life-saving efforts, and seemed in a way to affect their character, giving them the testimonial he craved.