He was very eager and very delightful in the description of what he had felt at the concert; the evening seemed to have been made up of exquisite moments.  The moment of her stepping forward in the octagon room to speak to him, the moment of Mr. Elliot’s appearing and tearing her away, and one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or increasing despondency, were dwelt on with energy.

‘To see you,’ cried he, ’in the midst of those who could not be my well-wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling, and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match!  To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence you!  Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what powerful support would be his!  Was it not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared?  How could I look on without agony?  Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you; was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the indelible, immovable impression of what persuasion had once done—­was it not all against me?’

‘You should have distinguished,’ replied Anne.  ’You should not have suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different.  If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk.  When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here.  In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated.’

‘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 anyone 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.  The Admiral’s news, indeed, was a revulsion; since that moment I have been divided what to do, and had it been confirmed, this would have been my last day in Bath.’

There was time for all this to pass, with such interruptions only as enhanced the charm of the communication, and Bath could hardly contain any other two beings at once so rationally and so rapturously happy as during that evening occupied the sofa of Mrs. Croft’s drawing-room in Gay Street.