It was not till the afternoon,when he joined them at tea,that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured,he replied,“Say nothing of that.Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing,and I ought to feel it.”
The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore,could be fairly conjectured from that,though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy,she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better.It would have spared her,she thought,one sleepless night out of two.
“I am not going to run away, papa,”said Kitty fretfully.“If I should ever go to Brighton,I would behave better than Lydia.”
“Well,well,”said he,“do not make yourself unhappy.If you are a good girl for the next ten years,I will take you to a review at the end of them.”
Mrs.Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world.His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece;and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him,had ended in nothing.Elizabeth had received none since her return that could come from Pemberley.