"In any case he'll be able to follow them up. I don't imagine they'll think of hiding."
"No; I'm afraid they won't. That is the worst of it! They won't hide and every one will come to know and then what good will there be in her coming back! If only I'd had her presented last year, Roger! She can never go to court now," Mrs. Chadwick wept, none the less piteously for her triviality. "To think that Francis's daughter cannot go to court! She would have looked so beautiful, with my pearls and the feathers. The feathers are becoming to so few girls. Nancy could not wear them nearly so well. Nancy can go and my daughter can't!"
"I don't think the lack of feathers will weigh seriously upon Meg's future, my dear friend."
"Oh, but it's what they stand for, Roger, that will weigh!" Mrs. Chadwick, even in her grief, retained her shrewdness. "It's easy to laugh at the feathers, but you might really as well laugh at wedding-rings! To think that Francis's daughter is travelling about with a man and without a wedding-ring! Or do you suppose they'll have thought of it and bought one? It would be a lie, of course; but don't you think that a lie would be justifiable under the circumstances?"
"I don't think it really makes any difference, until they can come home and be married."
"I suppose she must marry him now--if they won't hide--and will be proud of what they've done; she seems quite proud of it!--everyone will hear, so that they will have to marry. Oh--I don't know what to hope or what to fear! How can you expect me to have tea, Nancy!" she wept, as Nancy entered carrying the little tray. "It's so good of you, my dear, but how can I eat?--I can hardly face the servants, Roger. They will all hear. And Meg was always such a pet of Johnson's; his favourite of all my children. He used to give her very rich, unwholesome things in the pantry and once, when her father punished her for disobeying him and put her in the corner, in the drawing-room, one day, after lunch, Johnson nearly dropped the coffee, when he came in. It upset him dreadfully and he would hardly speak to Francis for a week afterwards. I know he will think it all our fault, when he hears, now. And so it is, for having trusted to a stranger. I can't drink tea, Nancy."