The quoted lines are an extract from the short story 'The Verger' written by William Somerset Maugham.
These lines are a reflection of what Albert Edward Foreman, the verger was thinking as he went to meet the new vicar in the vestry of St Peter's church. The new vicar was rather unhappy to know that the verger was an illiterate person and so he had asked the latter to meet him in the vestry one evening after the christening ceremony was over and the guests were gone. As the verger entered the vestry along with the vicar, he found the two elderly churchwardens, who were his colleagues for the last sixteen years, already present there.
This was rather surprising for him because he did not see them enter the vestry nor did he expect them to be there. Although the churchwardens gave pleasant nods to the verger on seeing him in the vestry, he could understand that the churchwardens were anxious about something. The vicar on the other hand displayed a kind of resolute kindness which was in contrast to of the troubled look on the faces of the churchwardens. It is in this context that the verger thought to himself that the vicar must have said or done something unpleasant that made these two elderly churchwardens anxious.