He felt, himself, unable to form any conjectures as to what Meg was likely to do. What she had done was so strangely unlike her.
"Not if it means leaving Captain Hayward for good," said Nancy. "But Aunt Eleanor and Mother both think that she may be willing to come till they can marry."
"That's better than nothing, isn't it," said Oldmeadow, and Nancy then surprised him by saying, as she looked round at him: "I don't want her to come back."
"Don't want her to come back? But you wanted Barney to go?"
"Yes. He had to go. Just so that everything might be done. So that it might be put before her. And to satisfy Aunt Eleanor. But, don't you see, Roger, it would really make it far more difficult for Aunt Eleanor to have her here. What would she do with her?--since she won't give up Captain Hayward? She can love Meg and grieve and yearn over her now. But if she were here she couldn't. It would be all grief and bitterness."
Nancy had evidently been thinking to some purpose during her sleepless night and he owned that her conclusion was the sound one. What disconcerted him was her assurance that Meg would not leave her lover. After Adrienne, Nancy was likely to have the most authentic impressions of Meg's attitude; and, as they drove towards Chelford, he was further disconcerted by hearing her murmur, half to herself: "It would be silly to leave him now, wouldn't it."
"Not if she's sorry and frightened at what she's done," he protested. "After all the man's got a wife who may be glad to have him back."
But Nancy said: "I don't think she would. I think she'll be glad not to have him back. Meg may be frightened; but I don't believe she'll be sorry; yet."
He meditated, somewhat gloomily, as they drove, on the unexpectedness of the younger generation. He had never thought of Nancy as belonging, in any but the chronological sense, to that category; yet here she was, accepting, if not condoning, the rebellion against law and morality.
Mrs. Averil had driven down to the Little House where she was to be picked up and, as they turned the corner to the Green, they saw her waiting at the gate, her furs turned up around her ears, her neat little face pinched and dry, as he had known that he would find it, and showing a secure if controlled indignation, rather than Nancy's sad perplexity.