Mr. Elliot that is, in my opinion he never had a fighting chance to win Anne. She was never sufficiently free of the spell of the dashing Captain Wentworth. Even before Frederick made his way to Bath thoughts of Mr. Elliot inevitably brought our captain to her mind:

He [Mr. Elliot] was quite as good-looking as he had appeared at Lyme, his countenance improved by speaking, and his manners were so exactly what they ought to be, so polished, so easy, so particularly agreeable, that she could compare them in excellence to only one person's manners. They were not the same, but they were, perhaps, equally good. (15)

He [Mr. Elliot] gave her to understand that he had looked at her with some earnestness [in Lyme]. She knew it well; and she remembered another person's look also. (16)

She never could accept him. And it was not only that her feelings were still adverse to any man save one… (17)

Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped. (17)