“Why not stay with a friend—the voluble Chator, for instance, or Martindale, that Solomon of schoolboys, or Rigg who in Medicean days would have been already a cardinal, so admirably does he incline to all parties?”
“I can’t ask myself,” said Michael. “Their people would think it rum. Besides, Chator’s governor has gout, and I wouldn’t care to be six weeks with the other two. Oh, I do hate not being grown up.”
“What about your friend Alan Merivale? I thought him a very charming youth and refreshingly unpietistic.”
“He doesn’t know the difference between a chasuble and a black gown,” said Michael.
“Which seems to me not to matter very much ultimately,” put in Mr. Viner.
“No, of course it doesn’t. But if one is keen on something and somebody else isn’t, it isn’t much fun,” Michael explained. “Besides, he can’t make me out nowadays.”
“Surely the incomprehensible is one of the chief charms of faith and friendship.”
“And anyway he’s going abroad to Switzerland—and I couldn’t possibly fish for an invitation. It is rotten. Everything’s always the same.”
“Except in the Church of England. There you have an almost blatant variety,” suggested the priest.
“You never will be serious when I want you to be,” grumbled Michael.