She entered the rooms on Thursday evening with feelings very different from what had attended her thither the Monday before.She had then been exulting in her engagement to Thorpe,and was now chiefly anxious to avoid his sight,lest he should engage her again;for though she could not,dared not expect that Mr Tilney should ask her a third time to dance,her wishes,hopes and plans all centred in nothing less.Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment,for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation.All have been,or at least all have believed themselves to be,in danger from the pursuit of someone whom they wished to avoid;and all have been anxious for the attentions of someone whom they wished to please.As soon as they were joined by the Thorpes,Catherine's agony began;she fidgeted about if John Thorpe came towards her,hid herself as much as possible from his view,and when he spoke to her pretended not to hear him.The cotillions were over,the country dancing beginning,and she saw nothing of the Tilneys.‘Do not be frightened,my dear Catherine,’whispered Isabella,‘but I am really going to dance with your brother again.I declare positively it is quite shocking.I tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself,but you and John must keep us in countenance.Make haste,my dear creature,and come to us.John is just walked off,but he will be back in a moment.’
Catherine had neither time nor inclination to answer.The others walked away,John Thorpe was still in view,and she gave herself up for lost.That she might not appear,however,to observe or expect him,she kept her eyes intently fixed on her fan;and a self condemnation for her folly,in supposing that among such a crowd they should even meet with the Tilneys in any reasonable time,had just passed through her mind,when she suddenly found herself addressed and again solicited to dance,by Mr Tilney himself.With what sparkling eyes and ready motion she granted his request,and with how pleasing a flutter of heart she went with him to the set,may be easily imagined.To escape,and,as she believed,so narrowly escape John Thorpe,and to be asked,so immediately on his joining her,asked by Mr Tilney,as if he had sought her on purpose! it did not appear to her that life could supply any greater felicity.
Scarcely had they worked themselves into the quiet possession of a place,however,when her attention was claimed by John Thorpe,who stood behind her.‘Heyday,Miss Morland!’said he,‘what is the meaning of this? I thought you and I were to dance together.’
‘I wonder you should think so,for you never asked me.’‘That is a good one,by Jove! I asked you as soon as I came into the room,and I was just going to ask you again,but when I turned round,you were gone! this is a cursed shabby trick!I only came for the sake of dancing with you,and I firmly believe you were engaged to me ever since Monday.Yes;I remember,I asked you while you were waiting in the lobby for your cloak.And here have I been telling all my acquaintance that I was going to dance with the prettiest girl in the room;and when they see you standing up with somebody else,they will quiz me famously.’
‘Oh,no;they will never think of me,after such a deion 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 back'd.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 born 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?’
