“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. ”