“My dear fellow, that shows you haven’t heard your parochial Mass,” said Chator, with mock seriousness. “St. Chad’s is our church.” “It sounds as if you had a saintly fish for Patron,” said Michael. “I say, steady. Steady. St. Chad, you know, of Lichfield.” Michael laughed loudly. “My dear old Chator, you are just as inimitable as ever. You haven’t changed a bit. Well, Saint Chad’s—Sunday.” From the window he watched Chator hurrying along beside the brindled walls. He thought how every excited step he took showed him to be bubbling over with the joy of telling Nigel Stewart of such a coincidence in the district of the Senior Curate. Michael suggested to Barnes that he should come with him to church on Sunday, and Barnes, who evidently thought his salary demanded deference to Michael’s wishes, made no objection. It was an October evening through which a wintry rawness had already penetrated, and the interior of St. Chad’s with its smell of people and warm wax and stale incense was significant of comfort and shelter. The church, a dreary Byzantine edifice, was nevertheless a very essential piece of London, being built of the yellow bricks whose texture and color more than that of any other material adapt themselves to the grime of the city. Nothing deliberately beautiful would have had power here. These people who sat thawing in a stupor of waiting felt at home. They were submerged in London streets, and their church was as deeply engulfed as themselves. The Stations of the Cross did not seem much more strange here than the lithographs in their own kitchens, and the raucous drone of Gregorians was familiar music. As the Office proceeded, Michael glanced from time to time toward his companion. At first Barnes had kept an expression of injured boredom, but with each chant he seemed less able to resist the habits of the past. Michael felt bound to ascribe to habit his compliance with the forms and ceremonies, for it was scarcely conceivable that he could any longer be moved by the appeal of a sensuous worship, still less by the craving of his soul for God.