Adam Johnstones Son | Page 5

sure."
"Perhaps you have a better memory than I," answered Mrs. Bowring.
"But I don't think it is exactly a question of memory either. I can
remember what I said, and did, and thought, well--twenty years ago.
But it seems to me very strange that I should have thought, and spoken,
and acted, just as I did. After all isn't it natural? They tell us that our
bodies are quite changed in less time than that."
"Yes--but the soul does not change," said Clare with conviction.
"The soul--"
Mrs. Bowring repeated the word, but said nothing more, and her still,
blue eyes wandered from her daughter's face and again fixed
themselves on an imaginary point of the far southern distance.
"At least," said Clare, "I was always taught so."
She smiled again, rather coldly, as though admitting that such teaching
might not be infallible after all.
"It is best to believe it," said her mother quietly, but in a colourless
voice. "Besides," she added, with a change of tone, "I do believe it, you
know. One is always the same, in the main things. It is the point of
view that changes. The best picture in the world does not look the same
in every light, does it?"
"No, I suppose not. You may like it in one light and not in another, and
in one place and not in another."
"Or at one time of life, and not at another," added Mrs. Bowring,
thoughtfully.
"I can't imagine that." Clare paused a moment. "Of course you are
thinking of people," she continued presently, with a little more
animation. "One always means people, when one talks in that way. And
that is what I cannot quite understand. It seems to me that if I liked

people once I should always like them."
Her mother looked at her.
"Yes--perhaps you would," she said, and she relapsed into silence.
Clare's colour did not change. No particular person was in her thoughts,
and she had, as it were, given her own general and inexperienced
opinion of her own character, quite honestly and without affectation.
"I don't know which are the happier," said Mrs. Bowring at last, "the
people who change, or the people who can't."
"You mean faithful or unfaithful people, I suppose," observed the
young girl with grave innocence.
A very slight flush rose in Mrs. Bowring's thin cheeks, and the quiet
eyes grew suddenly hard, but Clare was busy with her work again and
did not see.
"Those are big words," said the older woman in a low voice.
"Well--yes--of course!" answered Clare. "So they ought to be! It is
always the main question, isn't it? Whether you can trust a person or
not, I mean."
"That is one question. The other is, whether the person deserves to be
trusted."
"Oh--it's the same thing!"
"Not exactly."
"You know what I mean, mother. Besides, I don't believe that any one
who can't trust is really to be trusted. Do you?"
"My dear Clare!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring. "You can't put life into a
nutshell, like that!"

"No. I suppose not, though if a thing is true at all it must be always
true."
"Saving exceptions."
"Are there any exceptions to truth?" asked Clare incredulously. "Truth
isn't grammar--nor the British Constitution."
"No. But then, we don't know everything. What we call truth is what
we know. It is only what we know. All that we don't know, but which is,
is true, too--especially, all that we don't know about people with whom
we have to live."
"Oh--if people have secrets!" The young girl laughed idly. "But you
and I, for instance, mother--we have no secrets from each other, have
we? Well? Why should any two people who love each other have
secrets? And if they have none, why, then, they know all that there is to
be known about one another, and each trusts the other, and has a right
to be trusted, because everything is known--and everything is the whole
truth. It seems to me that is simple enough, isn't it?"
Mrs. Bowring laughed in her turn. It was rather a hard little laugh, but
Clare was used to the sound of it, and joined in it, feeling that she had
vanquished her mother in argument, and settled one of the most
important questions of life for ever.
"What a pretty steamer!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring suddenly.
"It's a yacht," said Clare after a moment. "The flag is English, too. I can
see it distinctly."
She laid down her work, and her mother closed her book upon her
forefinger again, and they watched the graceful white vessel as she
glided slowly in from the Conca, which she had rounded while they
had been talking.
"It's very big, for a yacht," observed Mrs. Bowring. "They are coming
here."

"They