“You must have been horribly precocious,” said Nigel disapprovingly.
“Oh, not more so than anyone who has freedom to develop. I should give up subjective encounters with evil, if I were you. You’ll be telling me soon that you’ve been pinched by demons like an Egyptian eremite.”
Nigel gave the impression of rather deploring the lack of such an experience, and Michael laughed:
“Go and see Maurice Avery in Grosvenor Road. He’s just the person you ought to convert. Nothing could be easier than to turn Mossy into an æsthetic Christian. Would that satisfy your zeal?”
“I really think you are growing very offensive,” said Nigel.
“No, I’m not. I’m illustrating a point. Your encounters with evil and Maurice’s encounters with religion would match each other. Both would have a very wide, but also a very superficial area.”
November had arrived, and Michael reappeared in Cheyne Walk to assist at Stella’s wedding. He paid no attention to the scorn she flung at his affected mode of life, and he successfully resisted her most carefully planned sallies of curiosity:
“What you have to do at present is to keep your own head, not mine. Think of the responsibilities of marriage and let me alone. I’ll tell you quite enough when the moment comes for telling.”
“Michael, you’re getting dreadfully obstinate,” Stella declared. “I remember when I could get a secret out of you in no time.”
“It’s not I who am obstinate,” said Michael. “It’s you who are utterly spoiled by the lovelorn Alan.”