“As to that—­I do not—­”

“Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax’s sensations from you, or from any body else.  They are known to no human being, I guess, but herself.  But if she continued to play whenever she was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses.”

“There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all—­” he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, “however, it is impossible for me to say on what terms they really were—­ how it might all be behind the scenes.  I can only say that there was smoothness outwardly.  But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct herself in critical situations, than I can be.”

“I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate,—­that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends.  But we never did.  I hardly know how it has happened; a little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set.  And then, her reserve—­I never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved.”

“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he.  “Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing.  There is safety in reserve, but no attraction.  One cannot love a reserved person.”

“Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater.  But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body’s reserve to procure one.  Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question.  I have no reason to think ill of her—­not the least—­except that such extreme and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal.”

He perfectly agreed with her:  and after walking together so long, and thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting.  He was not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better than she had expected.  His ideas seemed more moderate—­ his feelings warmer.  She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr. Elton’s house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at, and would not join them in finding much fault with.  No, he could not believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for having.  If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not think any man to be pitied for having that house.  There must be ample room in it for every real comfort.  The man must be a blockhead who wanted more.