In spite of the portentous significance of this day in his life David could not help seeing and feeling in his suddenly changed environment, as he puffed along behind Father Roland, something that was neither adventure nor romance, but humour.

A whimsical humour at first, but growing grimmer as his thoughts sped.

All his life he had lived in a great city, he had been a part of its life--a discordant note in it, and yet a part of it for all that.

He had been a fixture in a certain lap of luxury.

That luxury had refined him.