"But what do I want?" Michael asked himself so loudly that an errand-boy
stayed his whistling and stared after him until he turned the corner.

"I don't know," he muttered in the face of a fussy little woman, who
jumped aside to let him pass.

Soon he was deep in one of Mr. Viner's arm-chairs and, without waiting
even to produce one of the attenuated pipes he still affected, exclaimed
with desolating conviction:

"I'm absolutely sick of everything!"

"What, again?" said the priest, smiling.

"It's this war."

"You're not thinking of enlisting in the Imperial Yeomanry?"

"Oh, no, but a friend of mine--Alan Merivale's uncle--has been killed.
It seems all wrong."

"My dear old chap," said Mr. Viner earnestly, "I'm sorry for you."

"Oh, it isn't me you've got to pity," Michael cried. "I'd be glad of his
death. It's the finest death a fellow can have. But there's nothing fine
about it, when one sees these gibbering blockheads shouting and yelling
about nothing. I don't know what's the matter with England."

"Is England any worse than the rest of the world?" asked Mr. Viner.

"All this wearing of buttons and khaki ties!" Michael groaned.

"But that's the only way the man in the street can show his devotion.
You don't object to ritualism, do you? You cross yourself and bow down.
The church has colours and lights and incense. Do all these dishonour
Our Lord's death?"

"That's different," said Michael. "And anyway I don't know that the
comparison is much good to me now. I think I've lost my faith. I am
sorry to shock you, Mr. Viner."

"You don't shock me at all, my dear boy."

"Don't I?" said Michael in slightly disappointed tones.

"You forget that a priest is more difficult to shock than anyone on
earth."

"I like the way you take yourself as a typical priest. Very few of them
are like you."

"Come, that's rather a stupid remark, I think," said Mr. Viner coldly.

"Is it? I'm sorry. It doesn't seem to worry you very much that I've lost
my faith," Michael went on in an aggrieved voice.

"No, because I don't think you have. I've got a high enough opinion of
you to believe that if you really had lost your faith, you wouldn't
plunge comfortably down into one of my arm-chairs and give me the
information in the same sort of tone you'd tell me you'd forgotten to
bring back a book I'd lent you."

"I know you always find it very difficult to take me seriously," Michael
grumbled. "I suppose that's the right met