‘Listen to him, with three ladies talking at once?’ said Claude.  ’No, not Phyl—­her tears only are eloquent; but it is a mighty war about the token of peace and love, Lily.’

’The love would be in driving these horrible philosophical speculations out of Maurice’s mind,’ said Lily.

‘No one can ever drive out the truth,’ said Maurice, with provoking coolness.  ‘Don’t let her scratch out my eyes, Claude.’

‘I am not so sure of that maxim,’ said Claude.  ’Truth is chiefly injured—­I mean, her force weakened, by her own supporters.’

‘Then you agree with me,’ said Maurice, ’as, in fact, every rational person must.’

‘Then you are with me,’ said Lily, in the same breath; ’and you will convince Maurice of the danger of this nonsense.’

‘Umph,’ sighed Claude, throwing himself into his father’s arm-chair, ‘’tis a Herculean labour!  It seems I agree with you both.’

’Why, every Christian must be with me, who has not lost his way in a mist of his own raising,’ said Lilias.

‘Do you mean to say,’ said Maurice, ’that these colours are not produced by refraction?  Look at them on those prisms;’ and he pointed to an old-fashioned lustre on the chimney-piece.  ’I hope this is not a part of the Christian faith.’

‘Take care, Maurice,’ and Claude’s eyes were bent upon him in a manner that made him shrink.  And he added, ’Of course I do believe that chapter about Noah.  I only meant that the immediate cause of the rainbow is the refraction of light.  I did not mean to be irreverent, only the girls took me up in such a way.’

’And I know well enough that you can make those colours by light on drops of water,’ said Lily.

‘So you agreed all the time,’ said Claude.

‘But,’ added Lily, ’I never liked to know it; for it always seemed to be explaining away the Bible, and I cannot bear not to regard that lovely bow as a constant miracle.’

‘You will remember,’ said Claude, ’that some commentators say it should be, “I have set my bow in the cloud,” which would make what already existed become a token for the future.

‘I don’t like that explanation,’ said Lily.

‘Others say,’ added Claude, ’that there might have been no rain at all till the windows of heaven were opened at the flood, and, in that case, the first recurrence of rain must have greatly alarmed Noah’s family, if they had not been supported and cheered by the sight of the rainbow.’

‘That is reasonable,’ said Maurice.

‘I hate reason applied to revelation,’ said Lily.

‘It is a happier state of mind which does not seek to apply it,’ said Claude, looking at Phyllis, who had dried her tears, and stood in the window gazing at him, in the happy certainty that he was setting all right.  Maurice respected Claude for his science as much as his character, and did not make game of this observation as he would if it had been made by one of his sisters, but he looked at him with an odd expression of perplexity.  ’You do not think ignorant credulity better than reasonable belief?’ said he at length.