Meanwhile in another part of the conversation

At the same time that Austen is getting digs in at Richardson, we have a fair amount of "sensibility" going on. And when Catherine finally does meet a man who arouses her sensibility, it is interesting what exactly he does to arouse it. He speaks with her:

There was little leisure for speaking while they danced; but when they were seated at tea, she found him as agreeable as she had already given him credit for being. He talked with fluency and spirit — and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her.

Catherine is seventeen, an age in which young women and young men are not really sure what they want but they do want it very badly whatever it is.

The cynic will say, what it's no mystery at all, they want sex. I don't think so. Sex is always avilable to a seventeen year old girl, of course, although it might mean having sex with some Roman Polanksi like creep, but most want something else. Love? Eros? Something we don't have a word for?