“Oh! dear! very true. Only think, Miss
Elliot, to my great surprise I met with Mr Elliot
in Bath Street. I was never more astonished.
He turned back and walked with me to the Pump Yard.
He had been prevented setting off for Thornberry,
but I really forget by what; for I was in a hurry,
and could not much attend, and I can only answer for
his being determined not to be delayed in his return.
He wanted to know how early he might be admitted to-morrow.
He was full of `to-morrow,’ and it is very evident
that I have been full of it too, ever since I entered
the house, and learnt the extension of your plan and
all that had happened, or my seeing him could never
have gone so entirely out of my head.”
Chapter 23
One day only had passed since Anne’s conversation
with Mrs Smith; but a keener interest had succeeded,
and she was now so little touched by Mr Elliot’s
conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that
it became a matter of course the next morning, still
to defer her explanatory visit in Rivers Street.
She had promised to be with the Musgroves from breakfast
to dinner. Her faith was plighted, and Mr Elliot’s
character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade’s
head, must live another day.
She could not keep her appointment punctually, however;
the weather was unfavourable, and she had grieved over
the rain on her friends’ account, and felt it
very much on her own, before she was able to attempt
the walk. When she reached the White Hart, and
made her way to the proper apartment, she found herself
neither arriving quite in time, nor the first to arrive.
The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove, talking to
Mrs Croft, and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth;
and she immediately heard that Mary and Henrietta,
too impatient to wait, had gone out the moment it
had cleared, but would be back again soon, and that
the strictest injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove
to keep her there till they returned. She had
only to submit, sit down, be outwardly composed, and
feel herself plunged at once in all the agitations
which she had merely laid her account of tasting a
little before the morning closed. There was no
delay, no waste of time. She was deep in the
happiness of such misery, or the misery of such happiness,
instantly. Two minutes after her entering the
room, Captain Wentworth said—
“We will write the letter we were talking of,
Harville, now, if you will give me materials.”
Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went
to it, and nearly turning his back to them all, was
engrossed by writing.
