"Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus," he replied, "but I could not.

I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of

your character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed,

buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under

year after year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who

had given me up, who had been influenced by any one rather than by me.

I saw you with the very person who had guided you in that year of

misery. I had no reason to believe her of less authority now. The

force of habit was to be added."

"I should have thought," said Anne, "that my manner to yourself might

have spared you much or all of this."

"No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement to

another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet, I was

determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning, and

I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."

At last Anne was at home again, and happier than any one in that house

could have conceived. All the surprise and suspense, and every other

painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation, she

re-entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy in some

momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last. An interval

of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of

everything dangerous in such high-wrought felicity; and she went to her

room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her

enjoyment.

The evening came, the drawing-rooms were lighted up, the company

assembled. It was but a card party, it was but a mixture of those who

had never met before, and those who met too often; a commonplace

business, too numerous for intimacy, too small for variety; but Anne

had never found an evening shorter. Glowing and lovely in sensibility

and happiness, and more generally admired than she thought about or

cared for, she had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature

around her. Mr Elliot was there; she avoided, but she could pity him.

The Wallises, she had amusement in understanding them. Lady Dalrymple

and Miss Carteret--they would soon be innoxious cousins to her. She

cared not for Mrs Clay, and had nothing to blush for in the public

manners of her father and sister. With the Musgroves, there was the

happy chat of perfect ease; with Captain Harville, the kind-hearted

intercourse of brother and sister; with Lady Russell, attempts at

conversation, which a delicious consciousness cut short; with Admiral

and Mrs Croft, everything of peculiar cordiality and fervent interest,

which the same consciousness sought to conceal; and with Captain

Wentworth, some moments of communications continually occurring, and

always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.




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