To Sir Evelyn her voice was like a jug of cold water suddenly emptied over him. His delight in his own story faded away. He was conscious of nothing except that he had been betrayed into making a fool of himself. The vicar groaned aloud. "My dear Agatha----" he began. "Don't croak, Timothy," she cried, "and don't cavil. This is going to be the most splendid pageant there ever was. The real thing. All the cinemas in the world will reproduce it. We'll have half England here to see it." "Terrible, terrible," said the vicar. "We'll make pots of money--for the church of course, Timothy." "The church doesn't want money," said the vicar; but he knew even while he sobbed out the words, that this was not true. All churches want money, always, and when they get it immediately want more. So do states. If a church or a state could be found which did not want money all sensible men would immediately be received into the one and naturalised into the other. "Timothy, dearest," said Mrs. Eames, "you know the church ought to be restored. You can't imagine," she explained to Sir Evelyn, "how utterly Victorian our church is. It's quite impossible to have really catholic services in it in its present state. But if we only had money to restore it--and we will, thanks to your splendid idea of a smuggling pageant." Mrs. Eames, a fervent admirer of all that was best in drama, music and art, was in full sympathy with the picturesque part of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Church. If she had not been a vicar's wife she would probably have become Catholic without the Anglo. This shows the wisdom of the Church of England in encouraging the marriage of her clergy. A taste for ornamental ecclesiasticism would doubtless lead many women to desert the church of their baptism, if it were not that such women generally get married early in life to curates. And how many of our priests--blessed with similar tastes and an equal share of intelligence--would make their submission to seductive Rome if they were not irrevocably tied to women by a bond which they regard as sacramental? "God forbid," said the vicar solemnly, "that I should ever be guilty of restoring the church. I have," his voice became penitential, "I have many sins to answer for, but at least----" Mrs. Eames laid down the potato dish which she still held in her hands, ran to him and flung a plump arm round his neck. "Timothy, darling," she said, "you haven't any sins or shortcomings. I sometimes think you'd be a better man if you had a few. But you haven't." "At least," said the vicar, pushing his mouth clear of the hands which covered it, "it shall never be recorded of me that I restored a church. I beg of you, Agatha, to allow me to die without doing that."