In Ch 18, after Adm Croft told her that CB and Louisa were now an item...

Anne: I thought Captain Benwick a very pleasing young man....and I understand that he bears an excellent character."

Adm Croft: James Benwick is rather too piano for me; and though very likely it is all our partiality, Sophy and I cannot help thinking Frederick's manners better than his. There is something about Frederick more to our taste."

In the next paragraph: "Anne was caught. She had only meant to oppose the too-common idea of spirit and gentleness being incompatible with each other, not at all to represent Captain Benwick's manners as the very best that could possibly be; and, after a little hesitation, she was beginning to say, "I was not entering into any comparison of the two friends"...

So, we see that Anne seemed to be backpedaling... Or was she?

I'm beginning to think that she was caught speaking exactly as she had been thinking, either subconsciously or something she'd been considering..???

I think in her heart, she really, really was comparing the two. Earlier at Lyme, it seemed that Anne was open to getting to know CB more. But CW was always there, haunting her...???