"Weakness of character and waiting to see what would happen." "He talked too much," she answered decisively. "But are there houses in London with ponds in them?" "Lots," said Mr. Magnus. "Only the owners of the houses don't know it. There is a big pond in the Chapel. That's what Thurston came out of." This was beyond Maggie altogether. An agreeable thing, however, about Mr. Magnus was that he did not mind when you disliked his work. He seemed to expect that you would not like it. He was certainly a very unconceited man. A more important and more interesting theme was Mr. Magnus' reason for being where he was. What was he doing here? What led him to the Chapel doors, he being in no way a religious man? "It was like this," he told her. "I was living in Golders Green, and suddenly one morning I was tired of the country that wasn't country, and the butcher boy and the postman. So I moved as far into the centre of things as I could and took a room in St. Martin's Lane close at hand here. Then one evening I was wandering about, a desolate Sunday evening when the town is given over to cats. I suddenly came across the Chapel. I like going into London churches by chance, there's always something interesting, something you wouldn't expect. The Chapel simply astonished me. I couldn't imagine what they were all about, it wasn't the ordinary London congregation, it was almost the ordinary London service and yet not quite; there was an air of expectation and even excitement which is most unusual in a London church. Then there was Warlock. Of course one could see at once that he was an extraordinary man, a kind of prophet all on his own; he was as far away from that congregation as Columbus was from his crew when he first sighted the Indies." "I've met one or two prophets in my time, and their concern has always been with their audience first, themselves second and their vision last. Warlock is the other way round. He should have been a hermit, not the leader of a community. Well, it interested me. I came again and again ... I'm going to stay on now until the end." "The end?" asked Maggie.