“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 method with people like me.” “I thought you’d come up to talk about the South African War. If I’d known the war was so near home, I shouldn’t have been so frivolous,” said the priest. His eyes were so merry in the leaping firelight that Michael was compelled against his will to smile. “Of course, you make me laugh at the time and I forget how serious I meant to be when I arrived, and it’s not until I’m at home again that I realize I’m no nearer to what I wanted to say than when I came up,” protested Michael. “I’m not the unsympathetic boor you’d make me out,” Mr. Viner said. “Oh, I perfectly understand that all this heart-searching becomes a nuisance. But honestly, Mr. Viner, I think I’ve done nothing long enough.” “Then you do want to enlist?” said the priest quickly. “Why must ‘doing’ mean only one thing nowadays? Surely South Africa hasn’t got a monopoly of whatever’s being done,” Michael argued. “No, I don’t want to enlist,” he went on. “And I don’t want to go into a monastery, and I’m not sure that I really even want to go to church again.” “Give up going for a bit,” advised the priest. Michael jumped up from the chair and walked over to the bay-window, through which came a discordant sound of children playing in the street outside. “It’s impossible to be serious with you. I suppose you’re fed up with people like me,” Michael complained. “I know I’m moody and irritating, but I’ve got a lot to grumble about. I don’t seem to have any natural inclination for any profession. I’m not a musical genius like my young sister. That’s pretty galling, you know, really. After all, girls can get along better than boys without any special gifts, and she simply shines compared with me. I have no father. I’ve no idea who I was, where I came from, what I’m going to be. I keep on trying to be optimistic and think everything is good and beautiful, and then almost at once it turns out bad and ugly.” “Has your religion really turned out bad and ugly?” asked the priest gently. “Not right through, but here and there, yes.” “The religion itself or the people who profess it?” Mr. Viner persisted.