‘Plenty,’ she assured him. ‘Ah, to be sure, I haven’t told you. And yet that’s why it was important that I should know; for I didn’t suppose his old two hundred would matter to you much now. But the other day I got news: opening a new quarry they struck a seam of something else quite unexpected; it isn’t exactly plumbago, or Cumberland lead as they call it; but it’s rather like it; and as a consequence the property is up to something like twenty times its value.’ Mr. Trimblerigg took it very quietly; he made no sign; even now he was not sure that he wished things differently. He had a great desire, for his own spiritual comfort, to get the better of Davidina, just once. ‘Well, I congratulate you,’ he said; ‘where will the next expedition be? The Sahara, Persia, Arabia? It looks as if you were going to be a famous woman traveller; you’ve always had the pluck and the brain; and now you’ve got the means for it.’ ‘Do you mind, Jonathan?’ she asked him. ‘Mind? I’m delighted.’ ‘This is the first time,’ she confessed, ‘that you’ve ever taken me by surprise. You knew, and you didn’t say anything. You knew, and you let them turn you out. You knew, and you trusted me.’ ‘I’ve always trusted you.’ ‘Well, I haven’t always trusted you. In fact, I’ve always suspected you.’ ‘I know it, my dear Davidina, but as it amuses you and had left off hurting me--why not?’ ‘And now,’ she went on, as if he had not interrupted her, ‘I don’t know whether to suspect you or not.’ ‘You’d much better,’ he said. ‘The truth is I’m puzzled!’ ‘The truth often is very puzzling,’ assented Jonathan, ‘it’s so relative.’ Then he got up and stretched himself like a cat enjoying the sun. ‘And I still think,’ said Davidina decidedly, ‘that you are capable of being a villain, and a blood-thirsty villain too, if it suited you.’ Mr. Trimblerigg continued to stretch and to smile at her. ‘Oh, Davidina,’ he said, ‘you are a comfortable person to talk to!’ And at that he let her go. For once, just for once in his life he had got the better of her. Davidina was puzzled at him. It was a great event. And a week later he received from Davidina a voluntary transfer duly executed of one-half of the property, which at its prospectively enhanced value would make him comfortably off for life. It meant, it must mean, that at last he had won her approval. ‘Thou Davidina seest me!’ had no longer its old discomfort for him. In her eye too, as in everybody’s, there was a blind spot, and he had managed to hit it. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN _Too Good to be True_ The dulling of Davidina’s eye had a fatal effect upon the career of Mr. Trimblerigg. It removed the last obstacle from his way to thinking himself good. His own conscience had been malleable; but hers, serving in its place, had kept an integrity of its own which always left him with a doubt. Now the doubt vanished, and on that mercurial and magnetic temperament it had a surprising effect.