“Oh, no; they will never think of me, after such a description as that.”

“By heavens, if they do not, I will kick them out of the room for blockheads.  What chap have you there?” Catherine satisfied his curiosity.  “Tilney,” he repeated.  “Hum —­ I do not know him.  A good figure of a man; well put together.  Does he want a horse?  Here is a friend of mine, Sam Fletcher, has got one to sell that would suit anybody.  A famous clever animal for the road —­ only forty guineas.  I had fifty minds to buy it myself, for it is one of my maxims always to buy a good horse when I meet with one; but it would not answer my purpose, it would not do for the field.  I would give any money for a real good hunter.  I have three now, the best that ever were backed.  I would not take eight hundred guineas for them.  Fletcher and I mean to get a house in Leicestershire, against the next season.  It is so d —­ uncomfortable, living at an inn.”

This was the last sentence by which he could weary Catherine’s attention, for he was just then borne off by the resistless pressure of a long string of passing ladies.  Her partner now drew near, and said, “That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with you half a minute longer.  He has no business to withdraw the attention of my partner from me.  We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs solely to each other for that time.  Nobody can fasten themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other.  I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage.  Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours.”

“But they are such very different things!”

" —­ That you think they cannot be compared together.”

“To be sure not.  People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together.  People that dance only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour.”

“And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing.  Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view.  You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else.  You will allow all this?”

“Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still they are so very different.  I cannot look upon them at all in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to them.”