The vicar, who seemed obedient in most things though rebellious over the Christological heresies, shambled into the house in search of chairs.
"I'm just longing," said Mrs. Eames, "to hear all about the latest music and art. I really live for music though, of course, I never hear any, and I worship——" She looked round and saw that her husband had not yet come out of the house. "Timothy isn't here, so I don't mind saying that I worship the theatre. I hope you don't think it very wrong of me to say 'worship,' on account of the second commandment, and me being a clergyman's wife. Though, of course, the theatre isn't a graven or molten image, is it? Still, Timothy mightn't quite like my saying it, although it's true. Now what do you think about that, Sir Evelyn?"
Sir Evelyn evaded the point, a thing which his long practice in politics enabled him to do without any difficulty. He did not feel equal to deciding whether the second commandment forbids the worship of the theatre.
"I'm afraid," he said, "that you have not much chance of indulging your taste for the drama down here."
"Oh, but I have," said Mrs. Eames. "Timothy says I indulge it too much. But I always tell him something must be done for the good of the parish, and as he won't, I do. The year before last we had 'Macbeth,' acted entirely by the village people. I do think Shakespeare is so educative, don't you? Last year we had 'Othello,' and now we're getting up 'Hamlet.' Oh, here's Timothy coming back with some chairs. Now we'll be able to sit down and listen to you, Sir Evelyn. I always say that the greatest pleasure in life is hearing a clever man talk, a really clever man. Timothy, darling, Sir Evelyn thinks that we never have any plays here. But we do, don't we?"
The vicar, shambling along with two chairs dragged behind him, stopped when appealed to.
"Plays!" he said. "Oh, yes, certainly. Almost too many of them."
"I always think," said Mrs. Eames, "that Shakespeare is so much better done in the open air by simple country people. More Elizabethan in spirit. I'm sure you agree with me about that."
"I should have supposed," said Sir Evelyn, a little stiffly, "that it would have been difficult to get a satisfactory local Hamlet."
"Not a bit," said Mrs. Eames. "There's a man here called Hinton, the landlord of the inn—but you've seen him, haven't you?"