From this time Anne and Captain Wentworth are repeatedly in the same circle. The little boy's state can no longer keep her from dinner at Mr Musgrove's, and one evening is only the start of others. Wentworth's stories name the year six, the year he went to sea, and his voice does not falter. Anne knows his mind well enough to be sure he is visited by remembrance, as she is, though she does not think the pain equal. They have no talk beyond common civility. Once so much to each other, they are now nothing, and worse than strangers, because they can never become acquainted.
The Miss Musgroves hunt the Navy List for the Asp. Wentworth calls that worn sloop dear: they would go to the bottom together, or she would make him. A gale after he brought in a French frigate nearly made him a newspaper paragraph, and Anne shudders alone. Talk turns to the Laconia and Richard Musgrove. A glance tells Anne that Wentworth was probably glad to be rid of the boy, yet he speaks of him with real kindness. Mrs Musgrove's size on the sofa screens Anne while he keeps command of himself.
From that sofa the talk turns to women at sea. He says no ship of his shall carry a family of ladies if he can help it. Mrs Croft calls that idle refinement. She has been happiest on board with her husband, and wretched only in a winter alone at Deal. The evening ends in dancing. Anne plays, glad to be busy and unobserved, though her eyes sometimes fill. Once she feels him study her altered face. Once she hears that he asked why Miss Elliot never dances, and that she had rather play. When the dancing stops he is at the instrument, sees her, rises, and with studied politeness begs her pardon: the seat is hers. She draws back. He will not sit again. That cold grace is worse than anything.
Coming Up in Chapter 9
Wentworth comes to Uppercross almost every day, putting off his brother in Shropshire, and Charles Hayter returns to find Henrietta's manners changed. At the Cottage, Charles and Mary argue which sister is preferred, and Mary tries the sound of Lady Wentworth while Anne stays out of the argument.
