She had just settled this point when the end of the path brought them directly upon the general; and in spite of all her virtuous indignation, she found herself again obliged to walk with him, listen to him, and even to smile when he smiled.  Being no longer able, however, to receive pleasure from the surrounding objects, she soon began to walk with lassitude; the general perceived it, and with a concern for her health, which seemed to reproach her for her opinion of him, was most urgent for returning with his daughter to the house.  He would follow them in a quarter of an hour.  Again they parted —­ but Eleanor was called back in half a minute to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round the abbey till his return.  This second instance of his anxiety to delay what she so much wished for struck Catherine as very remarkable.

CHAPTER 23

An hour passed away before the general came in, spent, on the part of his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character.  “This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach.”  At length he appeared; and, whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could still smile with them.  Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend’s curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject; and her father being, contrary to Catherine’s expectations, unprovided with any pretence for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last ready to escort them.

They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a dignified step, which caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common drawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent both in size and furniture —­ the real drawing-room, used only with company of consequence.  It was very noble —­ very grand —­ very charming! —­ was all that Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned the colour of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise that had much meaning, was supplied by the general:  the costliness or elegance of any room’s fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared for no furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century.  When the general had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of every well-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an apartment, in its way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books, on which an humble man might have looked with pride.  Catherine heard, admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than before —­ gathered all that she could from this storehouse of knowledge, by running over the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed.  But suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes.  Large as was the building, she had already visited the greatest