“But it doesn’t,” Michael declared. “Wait a bit, I haven’t finished. I was going to say—when I tell you that we are going to keep the Assumption this August.” Michael’s eyes glittered for a moment with triumph. “By Jove, how decent.” Then they grew dull again. “And I shan’t be here. The rotten thing is, too, that my mater wants to go abroad. Only she says she couldn’t leave me alone. But of course she could really.” “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. “Oh, yes I will, and to prove it,” said Mr. Viner, “I’m going to make a suggestion of unparagoned earnestness.” “What?” “Now just let me diagnose your mental condition. You are sick of everything—Thucydides, cabbage, cricket, school, schoolfellows, certificates and life.” “Well, you needn’t rag me about it,” Michael interrupted. “In the Middle Ages gentlemen in your psychical perplexity betook themselves either to the Crusades or entered a monastery. Now, why shouldn’t you for these summer holidays betake yourself to a monastery? I will write to the Lord Abbot, to your lady mother, and if you consent, to the voluble Chator’s lady mother, humbly pointing out and ever praying, etc., etc.” “You’re not ragging?” asked Michael suspiciously. “Besides, what sort of a monastery?” “Oh, an Anglican monastery; but at the same time Benedictines of the most unimpeachable severity. In short, why shouldn’t you and Mark Chator go to Clere Abbas on the Berkshire Downs?” “Are they strict?” enquired Michael. “You know, saying the proper offices and all that, not the Day Hours of the English Church—that rotten Anglican thing.”