'He divined by genius what science is slowly finding out,' said Esther, 'when he said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."' Sidney laughed heartily. 'That seems to be your King Charles's head, seeing divinations of modern science in all the old ideas. Personally I honour him for discovering that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Strange he should have stopped half-way to the truth.' 'What is the truth?' asked Addie curiously. 'Why, that morality was made for man, not man for morality,' said Sidney. 'That chimera of meaningless virtue which the Hebrew has brought into the world is the last monster left to slay. The Hebrew view of life is too one-sided. The Bible is a literature without a laugh in it. Even Raphael thinks the great Radical of Galilee carried spirituality too far.' 'Yes, he thinks he would have been reconciled to the Jewish doctors, and would have understood them better,' said Addie, 'only he died so young.' 'That's a good way of putting it,' said Sidney admiringly. 'One can see Raphael is my cousin, despite his religious aberrations. It opens up new historical vistas. Only it is just like Raphael to find excuses for everybody, and Judaism in everything. I am sure he considers the devil a good Jew at heart. If he admits any moral obliquity in him, he puts it down to the climate.' This made Esther laugh outright, even while there were tears for Raphael in the laugh. Sidney's intellectual fascination reasserted itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him on the free heights that left all the clogging vapours and fogs of moral problems somewhere below, where the sun shone and the clear wind blew, and talk was a game of bowls with Puritan ideals for ninepins. He went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory of Mohammedology which he was working at. Just as for the Christian apologist the Old Testament was full of hints of the New, so he contended was the New Testament full of foreshadowings of the Koran, and he cited as a most convincing text, 'In heaven there shall be no marrying, nor giving in marriage.' He professed to think Mohammedanism was the dark horse that would come to the front in the race of religions, and win in the West, as it had won in the East. 'There's a man staring dreadfully at you, Esther,' said Addie, when the curtain fell on the second act. 'Nonsense,' said Esther, reluctantly returning from the realities of the play to the insipidities of actual life. 'Whoever it is, it must be at you.' She looked affectionately at the great glorious creature at her side, tall and stately, with that winning gentleness of expression which spiritualises the most voluptuous beauty.