“Well,” said Crawford, “I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. But we shall see. I shall endeavour to convince. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. They shall prove that I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit; all that I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay—” (seeing her draw back displeased), “forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet no right; but by what other name can I call you? Do you suppose you are ever present to my imagination under any other? No, it is ‘Fanny’ that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you.”

Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or refrained from trying to get away, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief.

The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty.

Edmund, subtly observing their interaction, was yet inclined to hope that something good had come of it.

Chapter XXXV

Edmund had determined that Crawford should not be mentioned between them unless Fanny wanted it. But after a day or two, he was induced by his father to try to influence his friend.

A day was actually fixed for the Crawfords’ departure. Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one more effort for the young man before he left Mansfield.

Edmund was not unwilling to get involved. Indeed, he was curious to know Fanny’s feelings. She had been used to consult him in every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her confidence now. He hoped to be of service to her—whom else had she to open her heart to? Fanny estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of things; a state which he must break through. Surely, she would want him to try.

“I will speak to her, sir: I will take the first opportunity of speaking to her alone.”

And upon Sir Thomas’s information of her being at that very time walking alone in the shrubbery, Edmund instantly joined her.