"For many years. I hope to see Mr. Winnington to-morrow or next day. He
is evidently hurrying home--because of this."

There was silence for a few minutes; then the Captain said bluntly:

"It's an awful pity, you know, that kind of thing cropping up down
here. We've escaped it so far."

"With such a lot of wild women about, what can you expect?" said the
solicitor briskly. "Like the measles--sure to come our way sooner or
later."

"Do you think they'll get what they want?" "What--the vote? No--not
unless the men are fools." The refined, apostolic face set like iron.

"None of the womanly women want it," said the Captain with conviction.
"You should hear my mother on it."

The solicitor did not reply. The adjutant's mother was not in his eyes
a model of wisdom. Nor did his own opinion want any fortifying from
outside.

Captain Andrews was not quite in the same position. He was conscious of
a strong male instinct which disavowed Miss Blanchflower and all her
kind; but at the same time he was exceedingly susceptible to female
beauty, and it troubled his reasoning processes that anybody so
wrong-headed should be so good-looking. His heart was soft, and his
brain all that was wanted for his own purposes. But it did not enable
him-it never had enabled him--to understand these extraordinary
"goings-on," which the newspapers were every day reporting, on the part