Sir Thomas was to return in November, and his eldest son had duties to call him earlier home. The approach of September brought tidings of Mr. Bertram—first in a letter to the gamekeeper and then in a letter to Edmund. And by the end of August he arrived himself, to be gay, agreeable, and gallant again as occasion served, or Miss Crawford demanded; to tell of races and Weymouth, unusual schemes and wagers, parties and friends. Six weeks before this might have invoked some interest—had she not currently so much preferred his younger brother, and realized the elder one was a complete idiot.

It was very vexatious, and she was heartily sorry for it. But so it was. And so far from now meaning to marry the elder, she did not even want to attract him beyond what the simplest claims of conscious beauty required. His lengthened absence from Mansfield, made it perfectly clear that he did not care about her; and his indifference was equaled by her own. Were he now to step forth the owner of Mansfield Park, she did not believe she could accept him.

The season and duties which brought Mr. Bertram back to Mansfield took Mr. Crawford into Norfolk. He went for a fortnight to Everingham—a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their guard, and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister, the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions, and wishing him not to return.

A fortnight of this sufficient leisure, in the intervals of shooting and sleeping, might have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away. But thoughtless and selfish, he would not look beyond the present moment. The sisters, handsome, clever, and encouraging, were an amusement to his sated mind. Thus, finding nothing in Norfolk to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield, he gladly returned to it at the time appointed, and was welcomed thither quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with further.

Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, was doomed to hear repeated details of his day’s sport—his boast of his dogs, his jealousy of his neighbours, his zeal after poachers (and even more so, after vermin), his complaints about “that infernal duck from Brighton” which he still managed not to apprehend—and oh, all that growling! All these subjects did not find their way to female feelings, and so she missed Mr. Crawford grievously.

And Julia, unengaged and unemployed, felt all the right of missing him much more. Each sister believed herself the favourite. Julia might be justified in so doing by the hints of Mrs. Grant, inclined to credit what she wished, and Maria by the hints of Mr. Crawford himself. Everything returned into the same state as before his absence.