‘I dare say it isn’t,’ said Davidina, ‘not as we think it. But if you start applying your own sense of what’s right to natives, they don’t think you a god, they think you a devil. That’s what you’ve been doing, Jonathan; and devil’s the result. And for my part, I don’t see that it’s any more against true religion to let yourself be worshipped as a god than to make yourself feared as a devil. Devil or god, it’s one or the other--you can’t get out of it; and to be thought a god and to act accordingly does less harm, comes cheaper, and makes things easier for all concerned. ‘Anyway here’s your object-lesson and there’s mine. I could have soon enough made them think me a devil if I’d taken your line, Jonathan. So now, unless it’s against your religion, you’d better try mine for a change. Be a god, Jonathan, be a god! It won’t be true; but believe me--sing, glory hallelujah! it’s the better hole to fall into. And now I’m going.’ So saying, she started to climb out the way she had come. ‘Where to?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg, astounded at so abrupt a leave-taking. ‘Anywhere, so long as it’s away from civilization--and you!’ she declared. ‘I’ll send my specimens down to the coast, then go back the way I’ve come. And, Jonathan, if you get beautifully burnt out by a bush-fire in the next day or two, don’t think it’s them; it’ll be me.’ ‘What for?’ ‘For fun, or for a moral object-lesson, just as you like to take it: Davidina’s dose--or jumps for Jonathan. Good-bye!’ She had escaped--had already gone a few paces, when Mr. Trimblerigg bethought him and called after her. ‘Daffy!’ It was the old abbreviated usage from days of childhood. She returned, and stood outside the chick without lifting it. ‘Well, what?’ she queried. And Mr. Trimblerigg’s voice came cooingly from within: ‘You haven’t kissed me, Daffy.’ ‘I have not,’ she replied starkly. ‘But we haven’t quarrelled, have we?’ ‘Quarrelled? Have I ever quarrelled with you yet, Jonathan? No fear! I’ve been saying your prayers for you--right way up. Now you say “Amen”; kiss yourself your own way, and go to sleep!’ She heard him chuckle; then in a whinnying tone, as he stretched himself: ‘Oh, you _are_ a comfortable person to talk to!’ ‘You’ve said that before.’ ‘It’s true. I’m glad you came, Davidina. You’ve given me a new idea.’ ‘I generally do,’ she replied. ‘But this is my own,’ he insisted. ‘So is the stuffing of a goose, once it’s inside him,’ was her retort. And with that she was gone. And Mr. Trimblerigg, with the feeling that something now remained to his credit, turned over and went blissfully to sleep. For having let Davidina know that she was ‘comfortable to talk to,’ he had turned the sharp points of her arrows, and so robbed them of venom that not a word she had said troubled him any more. So he gave his beloved sleep; and into his dreams came hovering the crocean dawn or that new idea, so entirely his own, prompted by Davidina. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT _Practical Idealism_