and experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either.
They were more in love with him; yet there it was not love.
It was a little fever of admiration; but it might, probably must,
end in love with some. Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted,
and yet Henrietta had sometimes the air of being divided between them.
Anne longed for the power of representing to them all what they were about,
and of pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to.
She did not attribute guile to any. It was the highest satisfaction
to her to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware
of the pain he was occasioning. There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph
in his manner. He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of
any claims of Charles Hayter. He was only wrong in accepting
the attentions (for accepting must be the word) of two young women at once.

After a short struggle, however, Charles Hayter seemed to quit the field.
Three days had passed without his coming once to Uppercross;
a most decided change. He had even refused one regular invitation to dinner;
and having been found on the occasion by Mr Musgrove with some large books
before him, Mr and Mrs Musgrove were sure all could not be right,
and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death.
It was Mary's hope and belief that he had received a positive dismissal
from Henrietta, and her husband lived under the constant dependence
of seeing him to-morrow. Anne could only feel that Charles Hayter
was wise.

One morning, about this time Charles Musgrove and Captain Wentworth
being gone a-shooting together, as the sisters in the Cottage
were sitting quietly at work, they were visited at the window
by the sisters from the Mansion-house.