That was a memory which he very much enjoyed: he had then drawn blood for the first time and heard a skull crack under his inexpert handling of the truncheon which a trained policeman only employs in the way of kindness. His man had gone to hospital. And that was at a time, too, when Mr. Trimblerigg considered himself a pacifist.
If the truth must be known he had more thoroughly enjoyed that brief hour of a violent laying-on of hands than the subsequent day of his ordination for which all the rest was a preparation. It had been more of an adventure.
And there you have the key to the temptations of Mr. Trimblerigg. Neither then, nor subsequently did he ever wish to do any man wrong; but he did wish to experiment. And whether it was the thickness of a fellow-student’s skull, or the rise and fall of a market, or the gullibility of the common herd, or the pious employment of superstition for high and noble ends, or his own susceptibility to a woman’s charm, or hers the other way about—he never had any other aim or object, or desire, except to experiment so that he might get to know and manipulate human nature better, including his own. Life itself was for him the great experiment.
And it so happened that at the very centre of his life was Caroline; and Caroline was dull.
Therefore their marital relations were imperfect.
It struck him one day that Caroline would be more interesting if he could make her jealous. Without giving her serious cause, he tried, and failed. But, in the process of his experiment, he engaged the affections of the instrument he employed much more than he intended.
It was a great nuisance. He had done everything to make such a dénouement unlikely; had chosen her indeed rather with a view to the stupidity of Caroline than to the attraction he found in her. She was rich, married, considerably older than himself, had in fact a grown-up daughter and a husband who was then in the process of earning a title for her and himself, together with a handsome retiring pension, in the Indian Civil Service. She also had a motor-car which she could drive independently of chauffeurs.
When he found that the affair had become serious he began avoiding her; and being, as a pedestrian, the more agile of the two he might have done it; but he could not avoid the motor-car. And so one day, having gone to a distant town to preach and to stay the night, he found the lady and the motor-car awaiting him at the chapel door, with an offer to motor him back to town all in the day.
In that there seemed a hazardous sort of safety; tender passages while on a high road and going at high speed, were compatible with virtue; there was also a spice of adventure in it; a half-engagement that they should meet abroad under platonic but unencumbered conditions, must now probably either be renewed or broken; to renew it would, he thought, be the safest way of temporizing with a situation which must end. Caroline had no capacity for jealousy, and the affair was becoming ridiculous.
And so getting into the car, with four hours of daylight left, and a hundred and fifty miles to go, Mr. Trimblerigg accommodated himself to the situation that was soon to end, and renewed with a warm asseveration of feelings that could not change.