“I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled up, with us,” replied Edmund, turning away to the fire, where sat his mother, aunt, and Fanny, with Lord Eastwind off to the side as usual. Edmund seated himself with a look of great vexation.

“What insurmountable difficulties are placed before you, Mr. Bertram,” said Lord Eastwind, surprising Fanny in this, for she had hardly seen him talk to anyone but Lady Bertram and herself.

“What? Oh, indeed,” replied Edmund, as though noticing the dark-haired gentleman for the first time.

Mr. Rushworth followed him to say, “I come in three times, and have two-and-forty speeches. That’s something, is it not? But I do not much like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a blue dress and a pink satin cloak. Grrraawwrr!”

Edmund could not answer him (though, the image of a portly wolf dressed in pink satin was indelible). In a few minutes Mr. Bertram was called out of the room, accompanied by Mr. Yates, and followed soon by Mr. Rushworth. Edmund almost immediately took the opportunity of saying, “I cannot, before Mr. Yates, speak what I feel as to this play, without reflecting on his friends at Ecclesford. But I must now, my dear Maria, tell you, that I think it exceedingly unfit for private representation, and that I hope you will give it up. I cannot but suppose you will when you have read it carefully over. Read only the first act[12] aloud to either your mother or aunt, and see how you can approve it!”

“We see things very differently,” cried Maria. “I am perfectly acquainted with the play, I assure you. With a very few omissions, I can see nothing objectionable in it; and I am not the only young woman who thinks it fit for private representation.”

“What self-assurance. I marvel at your cousin’s ability to persevere in the achievement of her own desire,” said Lord Eastwind, turning his face to Fanny only, and heard only by her.

“My Lord,” she replied, “yet again I know not what to say. I do not see how desire fits into any of this—only what is dutiful and right.”

“And yet,” he countered, “here, as everywhere on this mortal plane, desire is what drives the notion of what is dutiful and right.”

“Not so!” suddenly exclaimed Fanny, animated and finding herself hot around the cheeks. “At least—forgive me—if such is the sorry end-course of duty, then the very underlying notion of it must be rewritten!”

“Duty and Desire are on the opposite parts of the same candle lit at both ends. At some point, burning, they meet in the middle. And, if neither one gives way to the other, the whole candle is consumed. In this case, a candle is a life. Your cousin’s life. Your life.”