Austen Said:

to lose no time, lest somebody else should come in.

being perfectly ready,

The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk, to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister.

whether Captain Wentworth would come or not?

she had been seen with Mr Elliot three hours after his being supposed to be out of Bath,

the consciousness of having, by some complication of mutual trick, or some overbearing authority of his, been obliged to attend (perhaps for half an hour) to his lectures and restrictions on her designs on Sir Walter.

the gentlemen might each be too much self-occupied to hear.

"That is precisely what I was going to observe,"

"I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in a long engagement. I always think that no mutual --"

"Yes, dear ma'am,"

"or an uncertain engagement, an engagement which may be long. To begin without knowing that at such a time there will be the means of marrying, I hold to be very unsafe and unwise, and what I think all parents should prevent as far as they can."

"Here, Frederick, you and I part company, I believe,"

"I am going home, and you have an engagement with your friend. To-night we may have the pleasure of all meeting again at your party,"

"We had your sister's card yesterday, and I understood Frederick had a card too, though I did not see it; and you are disengaged, Frederick, are you not, as well as ourselves?"

While supposed to be writing only to Captain Benwick, he had been also addressing her! On the contents of that letter depended all which this world could do for her.

This was dreadful.

Would they only have gone away, and left her in the quiet possession of that room it would have been her cure; but to have them all standing or waiting around her was distracting,

she would go home.

Worse than all!

It could not be very lasting, however. Even if he did not come to Camden Place himself, it would be in her power to send an intelligible sentence by Captain Harville.