Wilton confessed to Linton Herrick a treacherous thought. It concerned the wife of his bosom and the new Amazons.
"Seems to me," said the little man, "as this here scheme may be a good thing in a manner of speaking. There's girls, and, maybe, there's wives too, that wants a bit of a change. Well, that's right enough. Why not?"
"What do you mean?" asked Linton, wondering and amused.
"Wot I mean, under pervisions, mind, under pervisions...." Linton laughed, but Wilton was quite serious, his thoughts engaged in a great domestic problem, his hands busy with the machinery of the Bladud, in which they were just about to go aloft.
"Well, it's like this, I wouldn't be for letting women jine a reg'lar army, but militia's different. They'd get a 'oliday at Government expense. When they come back they'd be more contented-like with their 'omes; and while they was away, well, there...." rubbing his head with a pair of pincers.
"And while they were away the men would have a quiet time, eh?" laughed Linton, who had heard of Wilton's family history.
"You've 'it it, sir, you've 'it it," said Wilton, without the vestige of a smile. "Not but what women has a lot to put up with, mind you; and there's times when they're as kind as kind. Still, wot I say is, a lot of 'em's never content unless they can have the upper 'and, and that's what's wrong with England."
Meanwhile, at Bath, the condition of Nicholas Jardine had given Zenobia cause for increasing anxiety.