Emma continues to let herself be impressed by Frank, while he adroitly replies to her suspicions about Jane with words that seem to agree with her and sometimes do. The reader may be beginning to wonder some about his words and actions, but Emma is not. She is, in fact, so optimistically sure of things and of herself that unconsciously she puts George in the same category of "not marrying" with herself. She does this in a context which involves another instance of reversal, though a milder one than the climactic one in the first volume: Mrs. Weston is now the matchmaker. For a moment, at least, her and Emma's roles are reversed; and through this Miss Austen may be making a wry comment on the influences of human relationships.
The reader who finishes the novel and then re-reads this chapter will find, as he often will in other chapters, a great deal of irony—for instance, in the manner in which Emma (and perhaps the reader also on a first perusal) is shrewdly misled by Frank's conversation and observations, likewise in Emma's reason given as to why George must never marry. But there is also immediate irony which the reader can find, for example, in George's reply to Emma's congratulating him for bringing his carriage to the party. Though irony always contains some kind of special truth, in this case it is both obvious and realistic.
